Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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men. It includes a vestibule which leads to the majlis (a formal reception area), a large
dining room, a space for washing hands and a bathroom. The remaining part of the house
is the family space. In addition to the central saalah, it includes a women's receptionsetting
area, a kitchen, bedrooms and a private bathrooms. The women's reception room
may also be used as a winter family room, so within the same house, space is used for
different functions and sexes at different seasons. The upper floor is exclusively used for
sleeping. An outside annex comprising several rooms may be used as a larger kitchen for
larger families and to avoid cooking odors within the house and allow for male servants to
use the outside utility rooms such as laundry and storage rooms. A front side annex may
also include space for entertainment, guest rooms and a bath. Traditional architecture has
been supplanted with modern eclecticism, one which exhibits rigid organization of internal
space and, mostly shoddy, prosaic and gaudy outer forms fusing discordant elements and
styles into a "messy whole."
The tendency in developing countries in which "new forms and materials because of
their 'high' status are adopted and preferred to traditional solutions though traditional
solutions frequently respond more effectively to climate" is well documented. 26 The
prevailing traditional architecture was linked to the austere poverty of the past and so
perceived as anachronistic. The wholesale adoption of imported architecture was captured
in the comprehensive study which preceded the construction of the Diplomatic Quarter. In
1978, commenting on the new paradigm, the authors stated,
In fact, regarding the appearance of modern Riyadh as a city, it seems that in
recent town planning and house designs, persistence of traditional principles
of Najd urban culture would have been more desirable than the wholesale
adoption of western architectural styles which present-day Riyadh features. 27
The new imported paradigms were associated with modernization, a loaded term
which, among others, meant the introduction of new, imported design concepts, building
technology and convenient living styles, all conformed to the new modernization
philosophy of the state. 28 Modernization was the motto of the nation-state, a broad,
elusive concept that justified the flooding of the traditional society with up-to-date
materialism and technological know-how. The gap between traditionalism and modernism
apparently has been too wide to be comprehended by a the majority of the society. Cultural
alienation resulting from churning masses into cities was defused by repeated
consumerism. Largely, modernization came at the cost of gradual substitution of local