Dr Nada Al Nafea

Assistant professor Housing and Home Management Department Chair King Abdulaziz University

Title of presentation :City in Transition: Personal Vs. Collective identity in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

The lack of urban and architectural identity is one of the main issues that raised the debate in the past three decades in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.  In fact the issue remained in the problem of the "disconnection of vision".  What is meant here is that usually those who manage the built environment are not in the same level of awareness and interest that is required.  In this sense, usually maintaining the urban and architectural identity will depend on the person who will become responsible about the mayoralty.  This paper is aimed to express the impact  of  t he Mayors‟ of  Jeddah interests on the identity of the city in the past three decades.  This will include the administrative process and its impact on the identity of city.  The study will cover the initiatives that took place by Mohammed Said Farsi and the successor mayors who came after him.  We will show how "personal interest" in art and architectural made a difference, Farsi was very interested in art and architecture and tried to transform Jeddah to become a "city of art" but after he left his position as mayor this concept became unimportant and all the mayors who succeeded him did not pay attention to the "identity of Jeddah".  Our observation is that "urban identity" can be achieved by art and design but this will continue only if its inhabitants participate and construct its identity.  What happened in Jeddah is that there was lack and ignorance of people participation which led to the loss of the expected impact of the art work in the city plazas that Farsi thought it will change taste and vision of Jeddah inhabitants.    This paper aims to explore this issue and develop ideas to maintain the "collective identity" rather than depending on "personal identity".