Mekka – Experiencing the Landscape

The landscape between Jeddah and Mecca is barren. Establishing oases - vegetation in the desert – in the desert remains a challenge, but corresponds to the human desire to make places habitable.  The oasis is one of the origins of the Old Persian pairi.daêza, from which the word paradise is derived.

The Asir Mountains run parallel to the sea and are characterized by desert areas and limestone formations with 2000-metre-high peaks. The city of Mecca is located in a valley between two mountain ranges, about 70 km from the coast of the Red Sea. The climate is semiarid and there are hardly any trees or bodies of water. East of the province of Mecca the desert and desert-like hyper-arid landscape stretches all the way to the Persian Gulf.  The harbour city of Jeddah in the west, the city of Taif in the east, and the pilgrimage area itself form a metropolitan region that stretches for approximately 140 km. Nowadays pilgrims usually arrive at Jeddah's airport and reach Mecca by way of a motorway that runs along a wadi (a riverbed in which water seldom flows). The wadi serves as the gateway to the city.

At the request of the municipal authorities, we developed proposals for gardens belonging to the Ummah (Moslem Community) at the administrative border of Mecca.  These gardens were to be accessible to all visitors.  We were more fascinated by the idea of a concept that took up the ancient tradition of pilgrimage caravans than we were by that of a compact park.  Such a concept would allow visitors to experience a slow crossing of different regions.  Encountering nature in such an extreme landscape is a borderline experience that demonstrates how fragile ecosystems presently are across almost one-fifth of the planet’s surface. The establishment of a number of oasis gardens with typical characteristics of the countries of the Ummah visited on the way to Mecca would once again allow part of the journey to become an experiencing of the landscape.