In June 2024, we read in Arab News, amongst other newspapers, about the launch of a new architectural project as part of the vast and ambitious Qiddiya entertainment complex, currently under construction about 45 km southwest of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, a “city” dedicated exclusively to entertainment, sports, and the arts. That project was the Qiddiya Performing Arts Centre. Now, according to MEED, “contractors are engaged with tendering for the contract to build the performance arts centre at Qiddiya entertainment city.” Specifically, after the first phase of bidding, which began last September, the project will enter the second phase of proposal submission this May.
The Qiddiya Performing Arts Centre stands out as an architectural gem—literally—with a design that challenges conventional perspectives of the craft. The work of Tom Wiscombe Architecture, this is a stage for drama and performances whose appearance transports us to an almost science-fiction technological future. In fact, in the presentation video below, it appears as a kind of spaceship landing on the edge of one of the many cliffs in the Tuwaiq Mountains, above the Qiddiya City plateau. In this regard, the studio’s professionals assert that “its radically open form, unlike the closed theatre type of the 20th century, allows the theatre to spill out into the public realm.”
Renderings of the Qiddiya Performing Arts Centre display an almost alien aesthetic, with reflective façades, angular shapes, and overlapping volumes. Its designers refer to it as a building of “megalithic slabs” that “playfully” lean against each other—like a kind of Stonehenge of the future? These slabs are connected by cuts, creating “an unfamiliar alien silhouette against the sky.”
Three theatres for a combined capacity of around 3,000 people, as well as rehearsal rooms, a rooftop garden, art galleries, and other interconnected public spaces, find their place between the large slabs and within. Again, in the words of its architects, the building prioritizes spatial fluidity, with ramps and platforms that invite exploration of “a building designed as a massive immersive stage.” Furthermore, the project promises pioneering technological integration, with adaptable acoustic systems and transformable stages.
We conclude this brief note on the Qiddiya Performing Arts Centre, not without first reflecting on the awe its design inspires, with the motto used by the architects at Tom Wiscombe Architecture and its developers: “an otherworldly stage, built for this world.”
Here, for your curiosity, is the promised video:
Sources: Arab News, MEED, Tom Wiscombe Architecture.
Images: Tom Wiscombe Architecture.
