Dmjm (2 results)
More imagesLanguage: English
Published by US Army Corps of Engineers Mediterranean Division; Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Defence and Aviation, Livorno, Italy; Riyadh, 1975
- Softcover
Seller: Dendera, London, United KingdomDendera
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Near fine
£ 2,500.00
£ 25.00 shippingShips from United Kingdom to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Soft cover. Condition: Near Fine. Responding to Saudi concerns after the Yom Kippur War, these plans illustrate the development of a highly ambitious USACE medical facilities design and construction programme for the Ministry of Defence and Aviation (MODA), which was abandoned in its advanced planning stage. This set contains 3…related items. Items 1&2: Concept Sketches (1 Nov 1975), 2 matching comb-bound volumes for the MODA Medical Centre and Taif General Hospital in printed card wraps 29x22cm. (42), (42)pp printed to the rectos on heavy paper with b/w models, artist's impressions, plans, and texts. Both fine. Item 3: Taif General Hospital Master Plan (May 1977), 56 b/w stapled photocopy leaves 55x39cm containing Plates 3-7 (model, exterior and interior renderings), and a complete run of Sheets 1-51 (30 and 31 bound in reverse containing plans, sections, and elevations). These photocopies look contemporary, likely prepared for working purposes, good, tanned with closed tears, the top leaf loose with some chips (one minimally impacting the image's borderline). Plates 1-2 are not present, and aside from credits and titles on each with some general notes, there are no accompanying cover pages or explanations. The Programme "went through several years of development before evaporating with unexpected rapidity". The idea originated in 1971 with USACE's review of MODA's medical facilities, in response to which MODA decided in 1974-75 to build medical centres with hospitals, teaching and research facilities in Riyadh and Taif, estimated at $526m and $400m respectively. USACE identified Ellerbe and DMJM to prepare the Master Plans. The scope expanded substantially following a Saudi tour of US medical facilities, with new plans drawn up in September 1975 including a facility at Al Kharj to circumvent space constraints in Riyadh. USACE met with Ellerbe / DMJM to streamline these plans, which were presented to MODA's Deputy Minister Prince Turki ibn Abdulaziz Al Saud in November. The Concept Sketches thus date to the lead up to that meeting, with the location of the Medical Centre as yet unidentified. The plans included general hospitals, family and troop housing, hotel, rehabilitation centre, schools, recreational clubs, warehouses, and community and support facilities for 8,500 people at Al Kharj and 5,000 at Taif costing $4.1bn and $1.5bn respectively. In December 1976 MODA prioritised Taif over Al Kharj, and Prince Turki received the completed Master Plan positively in February 1977. Although USACE heard informally in July that the Saudis had "disapproved or deferred" all funding, the Ellerbe / DMJM team numbering close to 100 staff, continued to work on putting the designs for Taif into deliverable form. The May 1977 working version of the Master Plan included here thus shows that process. However, in January 1978 the entire initiative was abandoned due to "lack of directions and inadequate design funds". This and the failure of other high cost projects shortly afterwards led USACE to reassess its overseas operations. It would appear the Saudis had other ideas in mind, with a RSAF Complex and Hospital built at Al Kharj during 1980-83, by a group led by Frank E. Basil Inc. Extremely rare, unrecorded on Worldcat and Library Hub, and very few other references found. (Reference: Grathwol and Moorhus, Bricks, Sand and Marble, US Army Center of Military History and USACE, 2009: 394-397).
More imagesPublished by Livorno, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mediterranean Division, for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Ministry of Defense and Aviation - Directorate of Military Works, May 1977., 1977
Seller: Antiquariat INLIBRIS Gilhofer Nfg. GmbH, Vienna, A, AustriaAntiquariat INLIBRIS Gilhofer Nfg. GmbH
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used
£ 3,079.61
£ 25.63 shippingShips from Austria to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Large oblong folio (556 x 383 mm), identified as "volume 10". Photostat. 328 pp., block-bound with screws. The Master Plan Drawings for an enormous, never-realized Medical Center which the U.S. Ministry of Defense and Aviation (MODA) aimed to build for the Saudi Arabian Army near Al-Kharj, some 70 km south of Riyadh. Part of an…ambitious programme to develop major military medical facilities at Mecca and Riyadh, the project quickly expanded, at the Saudis' request, from a 400-bed hospital in the capital to a massive 600-bed medical centre far outside Riyadh with acute care, teaching and research facilities, involving the planning of a small medical city near Al-Kharj with a population of 15,000. The architects whom the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tasked with the development were Ellerbe and DMJM (Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall), two concerns with extensive, international experience in designing medical facilities. By 1976 the cost estimate for the Al-Kharj centre had risen to no less than $4.1 billion; in February 1977, the completed master plan was presented to Prince Turki bin Abdulaziz in Riyadh. He appeared pleased but had already suggested that funding might need to be drawn out over a period of 20 years. In early 1978, all funding was abruptly withdrawn, and the architects' design work was brought to an unexpected end before any construction work even had begun. Today, the desert site north of the highway at Al-Kharj remains as bleak and empty as it appeared in the 1970s, though the Armed Forces Hospital in Kharj was erected nearby, in a slightly different location. - The present set of ground plans, elevations, and three-dimensional renderings, one of a small number of Master Plan sets produced in 1977 shortly before the programme fell through, shows the extent of planning reached, as well as the humongous scale of the project. A unique survival, and a poignant document of MODA's apparently limitless "willingness to build facilities to modernize every aspect of the Saudi Arabian military structure" (Grathwol/Moorhus, p. 394) at a time when increasing oil revenues redefined the limits of the possible. - In excellent state of preservation. - Cf. R. P. Grathwol, D. M. Moorhus: Bricks, Sand, and Marble. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction in the Mediterranean and Middle East, 1947-1991 (Washington, 2009), pp. 394-397.
