Jeddah: queen of the Red Sea - photographer's trip to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - Cover Story

PSA Journal, Jan, 1998 by Jane H. Black

Jeddah today is a phenomenon. It is an ancient Arabian city. The core is traditionally Arab, a highly compact complex of fine 19th century merchant houses and humbler dwellings, deep shaded alleys and walkways with the history of its inhabitants written on every lattice and balcony. Jeddah has been traditionally the commercial center of Saudi Arabia. At the same time it has been for centuries the arrival and assembly point every year for Muslims, from all over the world, embarking on the greatest journey of their lives, the Haj pilgrimage.

The discovery of oil earlier this century in Saudi Arabia and its importance to the modern world has had a huge impact on Jeddah. In the space of less than two decades the city has grown at an incredible rate. It has grown with remarkable grace and controlled purpose, which is a great credit to the mayor and city elders, who preside over and control its extraordinary expansionist energy.

It is a city with a striking modern face, sophisticated in its infrastructure and services but with an ancient heart it cannot live without. Jeddah "Queen of the Red Sea" is Arab, Islamic and Cosmopolitan, an ancient and modern civilization at a unique moment in its history.

Jeddah began as and still is a fishing port. It is not a particularly good natural harbor because of the coral reef which is just off shore. It grew in importance as a port because the Muslim shrines of Mecca and Medina are only a short distance away and the early pilgrims came mainly by boat. Today they arrive and depart by jumbo jet at the Haj, one of Jeddah's four magnificent terminal buildings. The second is for Saudi Air, the third for the rest of the world airlines and the fourth or Royal terminal is for the Royal Family and their guests only.

The Haj terminal, built in 1981, even to the untrained or romantic eye must be in concept and design one of the modern world's architectural wonders. The beauty, imagination and simplicity of the structure is breathtaking. The eye never tires of its proportions or of watching the magical effect of the ever-changing light upon its canopies. It is Jeddah in essence, distilled out of the harsh desert landscape. It is modern yet it whispers of the past. It looks like an encampment of tents, a mirage from the past, but it is a highly functional modern structure. Open to the desert breeze and shaded by 210 cone-shaped roof units, it is capable of handling 34 aircraft at one time and contains everything one would expect to find in the confines of a modern airport terminal.

Viewing Jeddah from the air and especially at night you see a sprawling and brilliantly lit city. Yet as the plane turns over the Red Sea and makes its long, slow descent over the city, a carefully controlled grid pattern of wide, sweeping highways becomes evident.

As you step from the cool interior of the British Airways 767, the night air wraps itself 'round you like a soft, warm blanket. By night Jeddah is a kaleidoscope of street lights, neon signs and fairy lights against a velvet blue-black sky. By the harsh light of day it is an expanse of white buildings against an azure sky.

The roads into and around the city are mainly dual carriageway and mostly several generous lanes. They lie across the flat ochre terrain like huge desert snakes occasionally rising in long, lazy loops to form intersections and break the monotony of the landscape. The cars, 80 percent white, move along them like armies of mechanical ants, for Jeddah is the motor trade's Utopia.

The present day city stands cheek by jowl with the old, much of it on reclaimed land (as though the desert were not vast enough) and outstripping the latter many times in size. You can stand and marvel at the elegant symmetry of the skyscraper, National Bank, with its neighboring architectural foil, a circular car park, on the edge of Eve's Pool. Then, only a short walk will plunge you into the shaded alleys which Lawrence of Arabia knew, where time has stood still. Here the old merchant houses rise to four and five stories. Built of wood and coral limestone they have the block structure of fortresses. The outsides are strung with wooden latticed balconies, like the exotic necklaces of the black-veiled women of the desert. Decorative yet closed to the eye and the sun, the ornate chinks in the carving can only be penetrated by the breeze, to touch and cool the secretive interiors. In contrast to the nearby modern buildings, no wall is straight, no structure symmetrical, no balconies in alignment. This was a securely walled city until a few years ago when the powers that be decided to remove the walls to make way for progress and the modern city burst forth in all directions.

A short walk from these enchanting old houses, through the bustling souk, now modernized with plate glass windows and metal pull-down shutters, you again feel the impact of twentieth century Jeddah. Before you rises the elegant Kamel Shopping Center and office tower block joined by an arch across a busy main road. The structures are of creamy-colored stone and glass and both natural and artificial light caress them in harmony and with devotion.