King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture – Ithra
Snøhetta · Dhahran, Saudi Arabia · 2017
Ithra is composed as a cluster of large pebble-like volumes emerging from the desert site of Saudi Aramco’s first commercial oil discovery. Snøhetta wraps the forms in stainless-steel tubes, giving the complex a continuous reflective texture while differentiating library, museum, cinema, auditorium and archive programs through the massing. The central tower rises above lower volumes that appear partly embedded in the landscape. Opened in 2017, Ithra is a major cultural investment in eastern Saudi Arabia and an important example of contemporary architecture used to shift a corporate oil site toward public education, arts and cultural production.