Saudi Arabia - Lecture 13

Rasem Badran was born in Jerusalem in 1945. He is the eldest son of the artist Jamal Badran. His father tutored him in

drawing and painting. Rasem’s hopes were to follow his father footsteps in the field of art. He was accepted in the program of architecture at Darmstadt University in West Germany in 1964

and graduated in 1970. Following his graduation, Badran worked for two years in Germany where he developed his artistic activity. His interest Arab Islamic architecture was

reflected in his graduation project, which was about the old city of Kuwait. Badran returned to Amman in 1973 where he has

been practicing since that year. Abu Hamdan, Akram, “Rasem Badran of Jordan,” in Mimar, 25, (Singapore: Concept media Ltd., 1987), 50. For more information on Rasem Badran, see Kultermann, Contemporary Architecture in the Arab World,

(New York: Mc Graw Hill, c 1999).

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Architect: Henning Larsen , 1925

Country of Origin :Denmark

Hajj Terminal

1983Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Skidmore, Owings and Merrill

Roofed by a fabric tension structurethe terminal provides toilets, shops, benches and banking facilities for the pilgrims. Twenty-one tent units, each 45 metres square, form a single module.

The terminal is comprised of 10 such modules: two identical five-module sections separated by a landscaped mall.

Thus, the two large terminal units each comprise a total of 105 tents.

The tents are hooked to steel rings hung from suspension cables which are draped from single pylons in the interior of the module, from ladder-like double pylons at the module edges and from four-pylon towers at the corners.

Jeddah Sports Hall, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia1981Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Frei Otto

The structural system consists of eight steel tube masts"

Jeddah Sports Hall, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Inter-Continental Hotel and Conference Center,Frei Otto 1974 Mecca, Saudi Arabia

The jury commended this project as "an effort to combine modern technology and functional forms in the context of Islamic culture."

Inter-Continental Hotel and Conference Center, Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Jeddah National Commercial Bank, Saudi Arabia, 1983

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill

to host the following functions: · A large banking hall on the ground floor for day-to-day operations; · Vaults for safes and security zones in the basement; · Regional management offices; · General management offices; · International division with lounges; and · Luxury offices for directors.

Jeddah National Commercial Bank The 27-storyed triangular tower is placed next to a six-storey high car park of circular ground plan.

Lifts and services are grouped in a separate rectangular tower abutting one side of the equilateral triangle and linked at its base to the car park.

The triangular plan of the main structure is repeated on all floor levels. Vertically, the levels are divided into increments of 7, 9 and 7 floors, each of these with office space on two sides and a glazed wall facing inward onto an open loggia.

A triangular court extends vertically through the building providing both ventilation and relief of heat build-up.

The stacked courtyards, combined with the windowless exterior ward off direct sunlight, but allow diffuse daylight into the building.

The tower is capped by the executive floor extending over the entire area of the triangle. Externally, it is expressed as an arcade shielding a glazed wall set back from it.

The banking hall at the main plaza level also spans over the full triangle, it has a mezzanine level supported on three columns and is covered by a conical skylight.