The promoters of The Line, Saudi Arabia’s new technological showcase, can rejoice: the impressive visuals of this huge reflective bar planted in the middle of the desert have been seen around the world. Unfortunately, there is not much to save in this above-ground project, which is far too cold and sanitized, believes Thierry Paquot, author of the book Urban disasters (ed. La Découverte).
L’Express: Is the linear city a promising concept?
Thierry Paquot: The projects that have followed this path have all ended badly. Starting with that of Arturo Soria y Mata. This Spanish entrepreneur who had bought shares in a railway, dreamed of building a linear city 34 kilometers long and 500 meters wide. His plan never came to fruition. In Russia, another incomplete attempt took place with the industrial city of Magnitogorsk. But in this urban space, some neighborhoods were occupied by executives, others by workers… It was in fact a non-city, an addition of people who lived side by side without really mixing. To be frank, I was really surprised to see such a linear city project because it goes against all the ideas that historians and geographers have been able to formulate on what made a city: the importance of wandering, of diversity, the subtlety in the arrangement between the building and the garden parts … More generally, the linear city compartmentalizes more than it combines.
What are the details that shock you in the Saudi project?
First, the excessive density. The Line will accommodate up to 9 million people over 34 square kilometres. At the time of the urban architect Le Corbusier, we thought that it was necessary to effectively concentrate the population in the same place to free up land and leave room for nature but, since the Covid epidemic, we have realizes on the contrary that we need porous cities and above all not too high a density producing isolation and home delivery jobs.
The Line refers to what I call an impasse in height. Not only does verticality create inequalities between those who live above and those who live below, but with its automated transport (trains, elevators) the city does not create relations between the inhabitants at all. In this project, efficiency prevails. However, the urban population suffers from a paradox: it wants both noise and silence, it seeks crowds and solitude, it appreciates having a multitude of possible paths, which sometimes pass through wasteland associated with no activity. As such, the Saudi project offers a frightening uniformity. We immediately think of Big Brother.
Can’t technology bring a certain form of well-being?
Such a project can only encourage high-tech urban agriculture. But this system, which would also have to be maintained over time, would be extremely expensive. And it would probably not be enough to ensure food self-sufficiency. Should the city be supplied by cargo planes? The design team – all men with rather commercial profiles – does not talk about it. It insists on the absence of CO2 emissions. But in view of the plans available, it is simply impossible!
Are there other city concepts we could take inspiration from?
Absolutely. I am thinking in particular of the garden city that we owe to the British Ebenezer Howard. Built around a center with a relatively low building density and an agricultural belt surrounding the city, these urban spaces do not exceed 30,000 inhabitants. Beyond this figure, another city is created. Howard said that the grouping of these garden cities created the social city and that the garden cities were linked together by an electric train. These remarks date from 1903. But they retain all their relevance!