The World’s Largest Building Is Coming to Saudi Arabia

The world’s soon-to-be largest building has officially broken ground.

Located in northwest Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the forthcoming Mukaab skyscraper is just one component of a 19-square-kilometer project spearheaded by New Murabba and the country’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), according to the developers. Though far from the tallest building at a projected 1,312 feet upon completion, the structure is expected to handily take the title of the world’s largest by volume.

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Mukaab, the Arabic word for “cube,” will have a block-like silhouette intricately decorated with interlocking triangles that reflect the contemporary Najdi style of architecture as well as the region’s traditional art. But there’s more to the building than meets the eye. Once inside, the rigid exterior gives way to a massive, airy atrium surrounding a central tower that spirals from the ground level to the very top. Taken together, the new skyscraper will house more than one million square feet of office space and more than two million square feet of retail space. A theater for performing arts, at least 100,000 private residences, a university and a museum will round out its offerings.

Scheduled to receive its first occupants by 2030, the New Murabba development is part of a larger plan first implemented by the Saudi government in 2016 that aims to diversify the nation’s economy and cultural footprint. The central tower and its surrounding campus will be something of a crown jewel that doubles as a new downtown for the capital city. The structure’s scale alone could have an even larger impact as it is slated to cause a rapid global reshuffling of which building’s sheer size comes out on top.

If all goes as planned, the Mukaab skyscraper will dethrone Boeing’s Everett Factory in Everett, Washington as the building with the most usable volume. Boeing’s Everett Factory first opened its doors in 1967 with a whopping 472 million cubic feet of usable space originally built to handle the assembly of its then-largest airliner, the 747.

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