International Hotel and Conference Center

In 1966 the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Finance sponsored an international competition for the design of a conference centre with hotel and mosque. The German team of Rolf Gutbrod and Frei Otto won the competition. Their design, inspired by Bedouin tents, proposed an enormous tent structure which would shelter beneath it an artificial oasis surrounded by the conference facilities and hotel rooms. The tent structure, marked at the centre by a 60-metre-high mast carrying a water tank, would have been open at the sides and top, permitting air to flow in and vent upward. After the competition the architects were asked by the ministry to develop their scheme for a different site, one located four miles west of Mecca, along a dry wadi bed, surrounded by the rugged Sirat hills. The winning design which had been suitable for the flat desert site near Riyadh was no longer appropriate. The new site's proximity to the holy city and the surrounding rugged terrain suggested a different solution, one less obtrusive and more in harmony with the landscape. En 1966, el ministro de finanzas de Arabia Saudí patrocinó un concurso internacional para el diseño de un centro de conferencias con hotel y mezquita en la ciudad de la Meca que ganó el equipo alemán formado por Rolf Gutbrod y Frei Otto. El diseño, inspirado en las tiendas de los beduinos, proponía una enorme estructura tensada la cual acogería un oasis artificial rodeado por las instalaciones del centro de conferencias y las habitaciones del hotel. La estructura tensada, organizada radialmente por un mástil de 60 metros de alto, tenía un tanque de agua, abriéndose hacia los lados y la parte superior, ventilaría para mantener una temperatura constante. Tras el concurso, el ministerio de finanzas decidió mover la propuesta a otro lugar, cuatro millas al oeste de la meca, rodeado por las colinas escarpadas del Sirat.