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'Architecture of the Two Holy Mosques' Exhibition Traces Expansion through History at Hajj Conference

'Architecture of the Two Holy Mosques' exhibition at Darah Pavilion showcases expansions through history at Hajj Conference. (SPA)
'Architecture of the Two Holy Mosques' exhibition at Darah Pavilion showcases expansions through history at Hajj Conference. (SPA)
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'Architecture of the Two Holy Mosques' Exhibition Traces Expansion through History at Hajj Conference

'Architecture of the Two Holy Mosques' exhibition at Darah Pavilion showcases expansions through history at Hajj Conference. (SPA)
'Architecture of the Two Holy Mosques' exhibition at Darah Pavilion showcases expansions through history at Hajj Conference. (SPA)

The King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives (Darah) is showcasing an exhibition titled “Architecture of the Two Holy Mosques and the Holy Sites” as part of the Hajj Conference and Exhibition 2025.

The pavilion offers a visual journey through key stages in the expansions of the Two Holy Mosques and the development of the holy sites over the decades, from the earliest construction works to the completion of major projects that define the sacred places today, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Monday.

The pavilion takes visitors back to the first expansion phase of the Grand Mosque, featuring rare photographs showing the construction of the second floor of Al-Safa and Al-Marwah corridor (Al-Masaa), highlighting the advanced architectural and engineering work of that time.

The exhibition also includes documentary footage capturing the final moments of the first and second expansions, with scenes showing heavy equipment, excavation, and concrete works at construction sites.

Extending to Madinah, the display presents historical photographs of the Prophet’s Mosque, including the western façade and the installation of large sunshades built under the directive of the late King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, which marked a major milestone in enhancing comfort within the mosque courtyards.

A prominent section of the pavilion is dedicated to the Kiswa (the covering of the Kaaba) and the evolution of its craftsmanship over the decades.

It features samples and photographs documenting the stages of production - from spinning and weaving to embroidery and modern design technologies - as well as images of artisans at the King Abdulaziz Complex for the Holy Kaaba Kiswa, meticulously working with gold and silver threads, blending manual artistry with advanced technology in service of Islam's holiest site.

Beyond the Two Holy Mosques, the exhibition highlights the development of the holy sites, showcasing archival images of pilgrims’ tents in Mina in earlier years and their gradual transformation into organized and fully equipped accommodations for lodging, prayer, and meal preparation.

It also presents historic images of Jamarat Bridge following the construction of the surrounding barriers to better manage pilgrim movement during the ritual of stoning - representing one of the key milestones in crowd management at the holy sites.

Blending engineering with history, and documentation with imagery, the pavilion presents a coherent chronological narrative showing how the Two Holy Mosques and the holy sites evolved from modest structures into one of the world’s most sophisticated infrastructure systems.

Visitors leave the pavilion with a vivid understanding of the architectural and service transformations that have shaped the Hajj experience through decades of continuous development.

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Culture

Private Museums Bolster Cultural Tourism in Qassim Region

A prominent example is the private museum of Abdullah Al-Suhaibani, an expert with over 40 years of experience in gemstones and minerals - SPA
A prominent example is the private museum of Abdullah Al-Suhaibani, an expert with over 40 years of experience in gemstones and minerals - SPA
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Private Museums Bolster Cultural Tourism in Qassim Region

A prominent example is the private museum of Abdullah Al-Suhaibani, an expert with over 40 years of experience in gemstones and minerals - SPA
A prominent example is the private museum of Abdullah Al-Suhaibani, an expert with over 40 years of experience in gemstones and minerals - SPA

Qassim Region is witnessing a significant rise in private museums, as individual collectors transform personal passions into vital cultural projects. These museums serve as a living memory for the community, preserving rare artifacts, historical documents, antique weapons, and vintage collections that document critical stages of the region's history. By connecting the present with its roots, these sites strengthen national identity and provide essential research resources for scholars and tourists alike, SPA reported.

A prominent example is the private museum of Abdullah Al-Suhaibani, an expert with over 40 years of experience in gemstones and minerals.

His collection features rare agates, fossils from ancient geological eras, and unique rock formations discovered throughout the Kingdom.

The museum acts as a scientific platform, promoting geology and field research while educating the community on the Kingdom’s diverse natural resources and mineral wealth.

Located near Al-Khabra Historical Village, these private initiatives have become key cultural landmarks in Riyadh Al-Khabra Governorate. Their growth aligns with Saudi Vision 2030 goals to develop cultural and scientific tourism, support local content, and position the Kingdom’s heritage and natural sites as premier global destinations.

Culture

Saudi Arabia Showcases Literary Diversity at 2026 Rabat International Book Fair

‏The Saudi pavilion brings together a range of government entities and cultural institutions - SPA
‏The Saudi pavilion brings together a range of government entities and cultural institutions - SPA
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Saudi Arabia Showcases Literary Diversity at 2026 Rabat International Book Fair

‏The Saudi pavilion brings together a range of government entities and cultural institutions - SPA
‏The Saudi pavilion brings together a range of government entities and cultural institutions - SPA

The Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission launched the Saudi pavilion at the 2026 International Publishing and Book Fair in Rabat, which continues through May 10.

‏Commission CEO Dr. Abdullatif Alwasel affirmed that the Kingdom’s participation in the event embodies the deep historical ties between Saudi Arabia and Morocco while showcasing a diverse, contemporary cultural movement driven by Saudi Vision 2030.

“Saudi Arabia’s participation at the 2026 International Publishing and Book Fair emphasizes the Kingdom’s commitment to spotlighting publishers and the creative literary sector, which continues to go from strength to strength,” Alwasel said, SPA reported.

‏He added: “The Saudi pavilion is an opportunity to invite people from every corner of the world to experience Saudi culture and diverse literary works, showcase unique Saudi talent and creative thinking, while facilitating cultural exchange and engaging discussions.”

‏The Saudi pavilion brings together a range of government entities and cultural institutions, led by the Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission, highlighting the integrated approach of the Kingdom’s cultural environment.

‏As part of the pavilion, the commission has organized a series of topical panel discussions, poetry evenings, and workshops featuring Saudi writers and creative thinkers, encouraging discussions on key issues relating to the literature, publishing and translation sector and its impact on Arab and global conversations.

‏The participation at the 31st International Publishing and Book Fair event reaffirms the Kingdom’s efforts towards platforming local talent and enhancing collaboration and cultural exchange.

Culture

Georg Baselitz, the German Painter Who Turned Postwar Art Upside Down, Dies at 88

German artist Georg Baselitz attends the opening of his exhibition "The Heroes" (Die Helden) at the Staedel museum in Frankfurt, Germany June 29, 2016. (Reuters)
German artist Georg Baselitz attends the opening of his exhibition "The Heroes" (Die Helden) at the Staedel museum in Frankfurt, Germany June 29, 2016. (Reuters)
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Georg Baselitz, the German Painter Who Turned Postwar Art Upside Down, Dies at 88

German artist Georg Baselitz attends the opening of his exhibition "The Heroes" (Die Helden) at the Staedel museum in Frankfurt, Germany June 29, 2016. (Reuters)
German artist Georg Baselitz attends the opening of his exhibition "The Heroes" (Die Helden) at the Staedel museum in Frankfurt, Germany June 29, 2016. (Reuters)

Georg Baselitz liked to insist — sometimes as a taunt, ‌sometimes as a shield — that he did not know how to paint. That he had "no talent".

Rejected at 17 by the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, he talked his way into an academy in East Berlin only to be expelled two semesters later for "sociopolitical immaturity".

"I was stupid," he recalled. "I was uneducated, but I was a rebel."

From that rebellion, Baselitz forged a career that made the child of Nazi Germany, schooled under Soviet communism, into one of the defining artists of postwar Germany.

The painter and sculptor, known for his depictions of raw bodies and inverted landscapes, has died at the age of 88, Germany's Die Welt newspaper reported on Thursday. No cause of death was given.

A REBEL SHAPED BY TWO DICTATORSHIPS

Georg Baselitz was born Hans-Georg Bruno Kern on January 23, 1938, in the Saxon village of Deutschbaselitz, a name he later adopted.

His father, a village schoolteacher and Nazi Party member, recorded Hans-Georg's birth in his diary. Inexplicably, he recorded the birth of none of his other four children, the Sächsische Zeitung daily reported in 2018.

After the war, ‌his father was ‌barred from teaching. Baselitz's mother took over his duties at the school.

Baselitz spent his childhood ‌amid ⁠the unforgiving discipline of ⁠Nazi Germany, and his adolescence amid the rubble and ideological re-education of the country's Soviet occupation zone.

"I was born into a destroyed order, a destroyed landscape, a destroyed people, a destroyed society," he later recalled. "And I didn't want to reestablish an order: I had seen enough of so-called order. I was forced to question everything, to be 'naive', to start again."

After he was expelled from the East Berlin academy, he moved to West Berlin, where he finished his studies and absorbed modernism in a way that felt, he said, like a sudden intake of oxygen.

He recalled the shock of first seeing works by Jackson Pollock and other abstract expressionists — evidence, in his telling, that ⁠the United States had a serious culture despite what he had been taught.

But rather than ‌imitate an American style, Baselitz turned back to German sources, drawing on expressionism, ‌folk traditions and imagery often dismissed by critics as ugly or even "degenerate".

SCANDAL AS A CALLING CARD

At a 1963 solo show in Berlin, authorities ‌seized two of his paintings on obscenity grounds. The episode made Baselitz famous.

The early pictures, marked by raw bodies, stunted masculinity and abrasive humor, were widely seen as provocation.

Supporters and museum curators have also framed them as a blunt report on postwar German life: damaged, compromised and struggling to find a new footing.

That sensibility carried into his mid-1960s "Heroes" paintings, which presented hulking, battered figures that looked less like victors than survivors ‌stumbling out of a defeated national myth.

But Baselitz's most recognizable works came in 1969, when he began painting motifs upside down.

After earlier experiments that fractured or partially inverted figures, he ⁠produced fully inverted works including "The ⁠Wood on Its Head" and "The Man by the Tree".

He did not simply flip finished images, he composed and painted them inverted from the start.

That approach altered how viewers read his works. By disrupting recognition, it forced attention onto the mechanics of painting — its color, balance and composition.

"An object painted upside down is suitable for painting because it is unsuitable as an object," Baselitz said.

The inversions made Baselitz an international figure in the 1970s and 1980s, as the market and institutions that once treated him as scandalous increasingly positioned him as a pillar of European postwar art.

His public reputation, however, did not settle into quiet respectability.

He repeatedly sparked backlash with remarks about female painters, including a widely reported claim that women "don't paint very well".

He also confronted the limits Germany's history places on gesture and imagery: a wooden sculpture shown at the 1980 Venice Biennale was widely read as evoking a Nazi salute, a reading he denied.

He was married to Johanna Elke Kretzschmar, known as Elke, with whom he had two sons.

In later life, Baselitz painted huge canvases from his wheelchair and moved his brushes and paints in a rolling cart.

"The sensible thing, in my situation, would naturally be to say: 'I stick to small formats'," he told Spanish newspaper El Pais at age 87. "But of course I don't do what's sensible. What's right for me is the nonsensical."