HADID AND FOSTER IN RUNNING TO REDEVELOP MECCA

As The Independent’s Alice-Azania Jarvis reports, two of Britain’s most renowned architects are in the running for one of history’s most audacious renovation plans: the redevelopment of Mecca. Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid are among eighteen architects to have been approached about redesigning Islam’s holiest city by building a mosque complex to host the three million Haj pilgrims who visit every year. The development would more than triple the central al-Haram mosque’s current nine-hundred-thousand capacity, making it the highest-occupancy building in the world.

The plans are thought to be backed by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz. The remit is to “establish a new architectural vision” for Mecca’s nearly four-million-square-foot mosques complex. The king is to be presented with the proposals by Hadid and Foster and with those of the other designers at an exhibition at the end of the month. Sources close to the project told the Architect’s Journal the scheme is likely to be phased, the first stage taking the al-Haram mosque capacity to 1.5 million. That would rise gradually until three million was reached.