Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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1950. Although a 1950 map shows a compact traditional town, filled up to the walls, mean
houses straggled along the dirt road tracks leading out the main gates. Meanwhile, royal
court estates sprang up outside the town, forming nuclei for future communities such as
Ashshmisy, Annasriyah, Al-Bedi'ah, and Al-Oraija (Figure 6.2). The increasing use of
the automobile contributed greatly to the explosive horizontal expansion of the compact city
into sub-nuclei dotting the city rim, while uncontrolled ribbon-development set the pattern
for the town's road network for decades to come.
At the core, on top of the compact, even grain form of the town, the new industrial
and commercial ways of the modern era of the nation-state had begun to lay some of the
patterns of the coming metropolis- especially the beginning of a downtown, characterized
by some multi-story high-rise buildings containing commercial, apartment and
manufacturing units . By 1948, electrical lights were used to illuminate Riyadh's main
streets and squares.
At the fringe, communities proliferated, exhibiting contrasting standards. The
'modern' sections of the city were carefully planned and constructed by several ministries
without coordination with the Municipality of Riyadh, or other established planning
authority. Such large scale development fell virtually within the jurisdiction of the
individual governmental agencies, who gave its development priority and attention.
Characteristically, early modern communities were platted following a Royal decree or at
the behest of the King. As government's needs for modern facilities grew- such as an
airport, a hospital, or a military complex— tracts of land were platted for the construction of
the new buildings. New development generally took place at the periphery where most
undeveloped land belonged to the government. New "planned" peripheral developments
were usually serviced by well-paved and landscaped thoroughfares comprising the
spikelike major tarmac roads which continued into the outskirts (desert). These
thoroughfares, some of which led to other major regions and important cities within the
Kingdom, took the form of radiating tentacles, reaching out for resources that contributed
to the city's impressive growth.
D. Demolishing The Wall: State Intervention and Inception of Urban
Transformation, c. 1950s
Riyadh's growth during the early decades of the Kingdom (1930-1960) reflected the