French architecture firm Ateliers Jean Nouvel has unveiled concept designs for a subterranean resort hidden within the rock that will be carved into a sandstone hill in the AlUla desert, 1,100kilometer from Riyadh or around 350 kilometer north of the city of Medina and contains the Madâin Sâlih UNESCO World Heritage site, in northwest Saudi Arabia.

The landscape of this extreme topography have inspired the architect throughout his career, from the characteristique dome Louvre Abu Dhabi to the National Museum of Qatar taking its shape from a set “desert roses.”

“I have a lot of admiration for the desert. The desert, for me, is a totally metaphysical dimension, surely a poetic dimension. We vanish in the middle of it, are alone in the middle of its vastness,” says Jean Nouvel.

Named Sharaan by Jean Nouvel, this newest proposal is located Sharaan Nature Reserve, Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site,  dialoguing with Nabatean design and its sandstone rock sculptures.  The Nabataean culture occupied this Arabian Desert area in between the second and fourth century BC and carved cities, including Petra in Jordan, into the area's sandstone rock.

The most well-known and recognised site in AlUla is Hegra, the principal southern city of the Nabataean Kingdom and is comprised of more than 100 well preserved tombs with elaborate facades cut into sandstone outcrops. Current research suggests Hegra was the most southern outpost of the Romans after conquering the Nabataeans in 106 CE.
 
Upon full completion in 2024, Sharaan will have 40 rooms, three villas, and 14 pavilions sprawling an area of near hundre thousand square meter.

Nouvel emphasised the importance of preserving such a unique landscape: “AlUla is a museum. Every wadi and escarpment, every stretch of sand and rocky outline, every geological  and archeological site deserves the greatest consideration. It’s vital we keep all its distinctiveness and  conserve its attractiveness, which largely rests on its remote and occasionally archaic character. We have to safeguard a little mystery as well as the promise of discoveries to come.”

Nouvel’s commitment to respecting AlUla’s landscape and ancient heritage has not meant shying away from modern architectural ideas. “AlUla deserves to acquire a degree of modernity,” he suggests. “Envisioning the future is a never-ending obligation that requires us to be fully alive to places in the present as well as conjuring up the past.”

Jean Nouvel explains how he’s adapting old ways of life to our modern world, minimising the impacts on natural and urban landscapes. To do this Nouvel has introduced a new typology of architecture, using abstraction, sculpting within the landscape itself rather than competing with it. Inspired by the Nabateans, it plays on the old ways of living to build on the present and meet the challenges of the future. Jean Nouvel integrates the way Nabateans interacted with their environment, both verticality and horizontality, to reconnect to the earth and build sustainable habitats, away from the heat of the summer and the cold of the winter.

More information

Label
Architects
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Client
Text
Royal Commission for AlUla.
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Dates
Text
2020-2024.
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.

Jean Nouvel, (born in Fumel, France, on August 12, 1945) is a French architect. He was born in Fumel, France, and studied architecture and design at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he graduated in 1972. In 1976, Nouvel was a founding member of "Mars 1976", along with other young French architects. He also participated in creating the Syndicat de l'Architecture, an independent organisation aimed at promoting a more critical awareness within the profession.

Nouvel has received prestigious architecture awards throughout his career, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (granted for the design of the Institut du Monde Arabe). In 2001, he received the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) for his international career. In 2005, he was awarded the Wolf Prize in the Arts by the Wolf Foundation in Jerusalem, and in 2008, the Pritzker Prize. He was awarded the Grand Gold Medal of the Académie d’Architecture of France and named Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. In addition, he has been made an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and has received honorary doctorates from several universities, including the University of Buenos Aires.

Nouvel was awarded the Pritzker Prize, the highest honour in architecture, in 2008, for his work on more than 200 projects. Among them, in the words of The New York Times, the “exotic brise-soleil” of the Institut du Monde Arabe, the “bullet-shaped” Torre Agbar in Barcelona with its “candy-colored” skin, the “muscular” Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis with its cantilevered bridge, and in Paris, the “challenging, mysterious and eccentrically wild” Musée du Quai Branly (2006) and the Philharmonie de Paris (a “journey into the unknown”, c. 2012).

The Pritzker highlighted numerous important works: in Europe, the Fondation Cartier for Contemporary Art (1994), the Culture and Congress Center in Lucerne (2000), the Nouvel Opéra in Lyon (1993), Expo 2002 in Switzerland and, under construction, the Concert Hall in Copenhagen and the Palace of Justice in Nantes (2000), as well as two tall towers in development in North America, Tour Verre in New York and a residential tower in Los Angeles. His recent cultural projects include the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Philharmonie de Paris, the National Museum of Qatar in Doha, and the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, 2010, in London.

In its announcement, the Pritzker Prize jury stated:

Of the many phrases that might be used to describe the career of architect Jean Nouvel, foremost are those that emphasize his courageous pursuit of new ideas and his challenge of accepted norms to stretch the boundaries of the field. [...] The jury acknowledged the ‘persistence, imagination, exuberance, and, above all, an insatiable urge for creative experimentation’ as qualities abundant in Nouvel’s work.

Among his principal projects are the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, the Fondation Cartier and the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, the Culture and Congress Center KKL in Lucerne, the extension of the Reina Sofía Art Center in Madrid, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Geneva Convention Center (2006), the Torre Agbar in Barcelona, the Dentsu Tower in Tokyo, the main complex of the Pierre and Marie Curie University campus in Paris, and the French Pavilion for Expo Shanghai 2010.

Among his current projects under study or construction are “53W53, Tour de Verre,” which integrates the expansion of the MoMA galleries in New York, the “Le Nouvel” residential towers in Kuala Lumpur, “Anderson 18” and “Ardmore” in Singapore, and “Rosewood” in São Paulo, the “Hekla” and “Duo” office towers in Paris, the cultural complex “The Artists’ Garden” in Qingdao, and the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) in Beijing. The design for the Louvre Abu Dhabi began in 2006 with Nouvel’s associate architect, Hala Wardé. His recent plans also include projects in Dakar, Rio de Janeiro, and Brussels, as well as urban interventions in historic sites such as the city center of Toledo, Spain.
 

Read more
Published on: October 27, 2020
Cite:
metalocus, MARÍA ANASTIDAS
"Jean Nouvel unveils cave hotel-resot project in Saudi Arabia's AlUla desert" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/jean-nouvel-unveils-cave-hotel-resot-project-saudi-arabias-alula-desert> ISSN 1139-6415
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...