Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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traditional values.
The "doxiadization" of Riyadh amounted to the superimposition of Westernrationalism
on a traditionally based society. The problematic practice of zoning, that was
conceived in the West as a tool of exclusion, was generalized to the Saudi city, a place were
separating of people by class was previously unknown. Under the pressure of
urbanization and economic growth, any plan was better than no plan; waiting meant
anarchy. However, to some Saudi planners and government officials, the "Westernization"
of the Saudi traditional built environment was deemed as synonymous with modernization
and prosperity. In 1978, the Municipality contracted a new international consultant firm
to help furnish a new plan for Riyadh.
2. Riyadh's Second Master Plan by SECT International
The economic boom of the 1970s rendered the Doxiadis Plan, originally targeted for
the year 2,000, obsolete. By the mid 1390s/1970s, land subdivisions crossed the Plan's
300 square kilometer area, many objectives in the Doxiadis Plan did not materialize as
projected and the city's population quadrupled from 1968 to 1977. For example, neither
the planned community hierarchy, the neighborhood centers, nor the diffusion of the
congested center by the linear CBD concept has realized (e.g. the number of shops
increased from 400 units to 5,400 during the same period). 46 SECT studies found that the
"main problems all stem from the difficulties inherent in coordinating the initiative of the
private development sector with policies directing public projects." In 1369H (1976), the
Deputy Ministry for Physical Planning contracted SECT International/ SEDES (SECT), a
French firm to devise a new plan for Riyadh. SECT agreed to retain the Doxiadis Master
Plan "as a basis for reference and to provide an overall planning background but it will no
longer be regarded as a rigid and detailed proposal" (Figure 6.14). 47
The SECT firm summarized the major problems as those resulting from a lack of
implementation, insufficient information and the virtual lack of coordination between the
various government departments executing large-scale projects. Many government projects
were undertaken without sufficient consideration for the larger environmental ramifications
such projects would require and generate, infrastructure, and community facilities such as
schools, commercial centers, etc.
SECT introduced a series of documents based on new data and local, growing