Center for World Culture Emerging - Saudi Aramco

Meet
the
experts
DHAHRAN — A world-class Cultural Center needs worldclass
people to envision and carry out its programs.
The staff at the center began in 2008 with fewer
than 10 people. The staff is now 85 strong and
growing.
It includes experts who have been recruited
from around the world. One of those is chief archivist
Ahmed Abu Zayed, who specializes in libraries and
By Soha F. Khan and Paul Sauser
archives, as well as knowledge management.
Recent projects include Digi-Islam, which describes the landscape
of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, and Digi-Turath, a
project for digitizing heritage and cultural material from the Arab world.
The center’s vision inspired him to come on board. “There are other good libraries
here and there in the Arab world,” he says, “but you don’t have this consolidation of
library, archives and museums. It’s a whole vision, one package.”
Lorraine Cornish, a museum collections specialist, worked for 30 years at the
Natural History Museum in London, where she looked after 17 million objects,
LORR ORR ORRAINE INE CORNI CORNISH especially in the Department of Paleontology.
“I worked in a museum that was very old and very well-established,” she
says, “and I really enjoyed my time there, but I think I was looking for a new challenge. I like
the idea of working on something that is just at its birth.”
Khalid S. Al-Yahya, head of the Knowledge and Research Division, has served as a professor
of physics at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and as a scientific
consultant for King Abdulaziz Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity.
“It is clear to all of us that we have the most exciting job in the world,” he says. “We feel
that there is something uniquely magical and stimulating about establishing an intellectual monument
that shall be seen by millions.”
Almost 32,000 cubic meters of structural concrete have been
poured, and 1,300 construction workers are on-site. Bringing it
all together is a 70-member Project Management Team.
The façade for the main complex is one of the most striking
and original features, which is in final fabrication design with a
leading German manufacturer.
The project has already attracted the attention of the
international community, as many of the building components
have and are being developed in various countries such as
Norway, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States,
South Korea and Saudi Arabia. Designs for the various exhibits
and audio-visual technology packages will incorporate
state-of-the-art technologies to support the company’s vision
for uniquely informative, engaging displays. These designs will
be further developed to support the award of several design,
fabrication and installation contracts to install the completed
Center exhibits.
Jamal Al-Benali, Senior Project Manager, advised that the
project is critically important for bridging the cultural gap
and creating a positive impact. He added, “the project team
is proud to be on this iconic project, but most importantly is
AHMED ABU Z ZZAYED
AYED YED
KHALID S. AL-Y AL- AL-YAHYA YA HYA HY
proud to be part of this cultural transformation process.”
Three members of Project Management Team recently
explained how the construction process works and how it
feels to be part of a landmark project. They were Faisal I.
Al-Dossary, lead project engineer, Architecture; Mohammed
A. Al-Khalifa, lead project engineer, Mechanical; and Murad
M. Al-Zayer, senior project engineer, Mechanical, Electrical,
Plumbing and Communication.
Al-Dossary and Al-Khalifa say they have been working on
the project from the beginning, with the architect Snohetta in
Oslo and its engineering subcontractor Buro Happold Engineering
in Glasgow. Engineering covers the structure, electrical,
fire protection, loss prevention, mechanical — all the areas
in which technical challenges arise.
One of the best-known of those challenges is the unique
facade of stainless steel pipes. About 70,000, 5.4-meter long
pieces will come from the manufacturer tagged and mapped.
Each piece will be unique, and each will be installed separately.
“I have to give credit to the design team,” Al-Dossary
says, “because there was a lot of detail. We know the
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Winter 2011 17