Branding at the Frontier

Testing the Limits of Entrepreneurial Urbanism in the Gulf

Abstract

In 2019, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia unveiled an ambitious new city called Qiddiya. This 334km2 entertainment city, situated on the outskirts of Riyadh, is positioned as the kingdom’s future capital of leisure, sport, and culture. And like many projects in the Gulf, the announcement came with sweeping renders: roller coasters cutting through desert canyons, a Six Flags theme park, and an e-sports arena of regional scale. A few years earlier, Abu Dhabi inaugurated the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Designed by Jean Nouvel, the museum rises from the coastline of Saadiyat Island, making it the centerpiece of a cultural district anchored by five Pritzker Prize-winning buildings and framed as the UAE’s gift to universal civilization. Both projects claim to be more than real estate. Both are instruments of post-oil economic diversification. And both are examples of city branding operating at a scale and ambition that raises an urgent question about whether branding mechanisms still function as structure, or break down, when the institutional conditions are strikingly different.