Vernacular architecture in Saudi Arabia: Revival of displaced traditions

Since 1950s Saudi Arabia has undergone immense changes in its social, economic and physical environments as a result of the dramatic increase in its national income that has accompanied the development of the oil industry. In less than half a century, Saudi Arabia has been transformed from nomadic and rural societies into modem urban ones. As a result of the extensive adoption of modern technologies and urbanization, most Saudis had fast quitted their vernacular traditions or lost functional relationships with it. The paper aims to examine traditional design and construction methods in three regions of Saudi Arabia (Western, Eastern and Central), how they had been abandoned and almost disappeared in the past 60 years or so, and the recent formal and informal efforts to revive and reinvent those traditional design and construction methods.