In the ancient world, empires were measured by their territorial expansion. In the modern era, by their skyscrapers. In the postmodern era, apparently, by their cubes.
Thus emerges the Mukaab—a colossal cube measuring 400 meters in height, length, and width. A geometric monolith the size of an entire neighborhood, designed to be visible from anywhere in Riyadh. More than a building, it is a monumental statement of ambition: a digital altar to consumption in the shape of a perfectly engineered box.
Saudi Arabia is not simply constructing a structure. It is constructing a message:
“If oil runs out, we will manufacture a new miracle.”
From Desert to Dystopia
The Mukaab will serve as the centerpiece of New Murabba, a 19-square-kilometer megaproject intended to transform Riyadh into a futuristic metropolis. But when the Saudi government speaks of “the future,” it is not referring to what is coming—it refers to what the regime wants to impose.
Here, the future is not a timeline. It is a product. A commodity packaged in immersive screens and sold inside a massive cube.
Within this cubic delirium, everything is promised:
- residential towers,
- universities,
- museums,
- hotels,
- parks,
- shopping malls,
- drones and AI systems,
- holographic entertainment,
- and total environmental control.
It is a controlled atmosphere with controlled freedoms—a Disneyland of benevolent authoritarianism.
Power Is No Longer Measured in Barrels
The project is not born of whim. It is born of urgency. Saudi Arabia understands better than anyone that its prosperity relies on a resource with an expiration date. Oil is no longer a guarantee of future global relevance.
The Mukaab is not architecture.
It is foreign policy disguised as construction.
It is luxury propaganda.
It is soft power scented with oud.
Financed by the Public Investment Fund—the same sovereign fund buying European football clubs, transforming global boxing, and turning the Dakar Rally into a state advertisement—the cube is directly linked to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He does not want to be remembered for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder but for reshaping the Middle East.
Why a Cube?
Because the cube carries deep symbolic power in Islam. The Kaaba, the holiest site in the Islamic world, is a cube. Millions pray toward it daily.
The Mukaab, marketed as a “traditional geometric inspiration,” represents a symbolic provocation disguised as modernity. It does not compete with the Kaaba, but it establishes a structural opposition:
- where the Kaaba is austere, the Mukaab is extravagant;
- where one is spiritual, the other is consumerist;
- where one connects with God, the other simulates reality with technology.
This contrast is intentional. It is a gesture of power. The crown prince seeks to shift Saudi identity from tribal theocracy to technocratic monarchy. And to achieve that, new symbols must replace old ones—even at the cost of tradition.
The Mirage of the Futuristic
Officially, the Mukaab will be “the largest built structure on earth,” “the first fully immersive destination,” and “a city within a city.” Yet beneath the marble and holographic domes lies a paradox:
the kingdom that restricts freedoms as a policy is building the world’s most advanced city.
It is a polished dystopia where nothing is lacking—except citizenship.
The cube will not belong to everyone.
Not to women requiring guardianship.
Not to migrant workers laboring in 50-degree heat to build it.
Not to dissidents or journalists.
Not even to the average Saudi citizen.
It will cater to luxury tourists, Davos elites, Gulf influencers, and Silicon Valley executives eager to exchange the desert for a curated metaverse.
From the Kaaba to the Mukaab: Evolution or Betrayal?
This leap—from a sacred cube to a hyper-consumerist cube—reflects the nation’s existential dilemma: can you build the future without erasing the past?
Modernization is not simply technological; it is cultural, religious, and symbolic. And when carried out too quickly, without debate or memory, the result is not a country of the future but a cardboard model shaped like a cube.
In the 20th century, the temples of progress were factories.
In the 21st century, they are shopping malls.
And in Saudi Arabia, they are cubes.
Architecture of Spectacle
The Mukaab is not impossible architecture. It is inevitable architecture—an outcome produced when absolute power intersects with infinite capital and a distorted vision of futurism.
What emerges is not art, nor urban planning, nor innovation.
It is spectacle—a spectacle requiring monumental stages to conceal its contradictions.
And the most unsettling part is this: it will probably succeed.
Saudi Arabia’s Cubic Delirium: Turning Oil Into Monumental Geometry
Saudi Arabia wants to build a cube—a cube larger than any built before. A megastructure so vast it promises to reshape Riyadh’s skyline forever.
The Mukaab is not merely a construction project; it is a geopolitical announcement that the kingdom intends to dominate the post-oil era through architecture, technology, and spectacle.
Within this hermetic environment:
- more than 104,000 residences,
- 9,000 hotel rooms,
- 80 commercial and cultural venues,
- and theaters for tens of thousands
will coexist in a climate-controlled urban ecosystem powered by augmented reality and holograms.
This is Saudi Arabia’s attempt to design a custom-made modernity—not to open the nation, but to curate a world under glass, symmetrical, managed, and sanitized.
The cube, like NEOM and its mirrored megacity “The Line,” is urban planning turned into diplomacy. It is the kingdom telling the world:
“We will build the 21st century, even if we must enclose it inside architecture.”
The Final Question: Who Is the Cube Really For?
Who will inhabit this curated geometry?
Who will breathe the controlled air?
Who will inhabit the spectacle?
Certainly not the millions still living under restricted civil liberties.
Certainly not the workers who will endure brutal conditions to construct it.
The cube will attract investors, influencers, consultants, and elites who speak of “digital ecosystems” and “climate-resilient cities” while ignoring the political reality beneath them.
Perhaps the Mukaab is not a city of the future after all.
Perhaps it is a cinematic set for a global elite searching for symbolic refuges amid ecological and geopolitical collapse.
A Mirror of Power
The Mukaab is not simply a building. It is a mirror—one that reflects a world where power is no longer expressed solely through armies or treaties, but through titanic structures that defy common sense.
A world where deserts are conquered not with water, but with air conditioning.
A world where the future is not lived—only simulated.
A world where architecture becomes ideology.
If we ever imagined the cities of the future, we probably did not expect them to be so geometric, so opaque, and so controlled.
But they will be: cubic, climate-sealed, and fueled by oil.
English 
Spanish 