It'd be the largest structure in the entire world.
Mirror Line
Talk about being extra — the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told engineers and designers he wanted his next architectural project to be as grand as the Egyptian pyramids.
According to the WSJ, the plans would make it the world's largest structure. The skyscraper would be a set of two parallel buildings, each 1,600 feet tall, and spanning 75 miles of terrain. Prince Salman is calling it the "Mirror Line" and wants it to house about five million people. It could cost as much as a trillion dollars and looks like a long, golden paradise in the photos shown below.
#SaudiArabia 🇸🇦 plans to construct two parallel skyscrapers up to 1,600 feet tall and stretching for 75 miles across mountains and feature high speed rail, a sports stadium, a yacht marina, and huge facilities.
- ‘ The Mirror Line ’ will house around five million residents. @WSJ pic.twitter.com/jbkYFAUeyI
— Mohammed Alhamed (@M7Alhamed) July 24, 2022
Linear City
Salman is hoping to change the economy in Saudi Arabia, a kingdom that relies heavily on oil. It's also fair to assume he might be hoping the project helps people forget he had journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered and hacked to pieces, an international news story that President Biden said he "rebuked" the king over during his visit last week.
The WSJ said Salman is, essentially, hoping to create an architectural feat designers have long dreamed of — a linear city. In concept, the Mirror Line is set to include nearly everything its residents could ever dream of needing, like a stadium, yacht club and renewable sources of energy and food.
Reality Bites
In reality, though, it kind of sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen. What happens when Salman's weird isolated city runs out of food during internal supply chain shortages, or when another pandemic rips though millions of people trapped in tight, close quarters between two buildings?
The WSJ says the building is already set to disrupt important ecological functions like water flow and migratory routes for birds. And needless to say, the unintended consequences of such a giant project — if actually completed by a man who recklessly murders journalists without real consequence — is anybody's guess.
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