What Drives Architects to Design Saudi Megaprojects? w/ Kate Wagner
03 30 23
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What Drives Architects to Design Saudi Megaprojects?
Kate Wagner
Notes
Paris Marx is joined by Kate Wagner to discuss the goals behind Saudi Arabia’s architectural megaprojects, the incentives for major architects to work on projects for despotic regimes, and how architecture’s relationship to tech is driven by profits and PR.
Guest
Kate Wagner is an architecture critic and journalist. She’s also the creator of McMansion Hell. Follow Kate on Twitter at @mcmansionhell.
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Links
- Kate wrote about Saudi Arabia’s big architecture projects, the problem with PR-chitecture, the ethical failings of modern architecture, and why utopian architectural projects suck.
- In 2020, Bjarke Ingels met with Jair Bolsonaro about a tourism plan for Brazil.
- Workers in the architecture industry have begun to unionize.