After over three decades of a ban across the country, Saudi Arabia reopened its cinemas in 2018. In response, Hayy Jameel launched an international design competition for an independent cinema within its dedicated arts complex in Jeddah. Among hundreds of applicants, the prestigious jury members selected Bricklab for their bold design aesthetic and sensitive response to community needs.
During the competition process, the architects acknowledged the tumultuous history of cinema in Saudi Arabia, reflecting the collective longing for artistic expression. In preparation, Bricklab conducted extensive conversations with local filmmakers, actors, and producers to provide a grounded response to community needs. As a result, the proposal was tailored to redefine the role of a cinema and reimagine it as an audiovisual center. In addition to a 200-seater main screen, the design includes a community screening room, a library, an archive, and an educational space.
Inspired by the notion of TV static as a state of transition, the materiality of the project focuses on textures and sensory experiences. The visual quality of TV static is understood as a visceral experience, with its distinctive ‘fuzzy’ textural quality that combines both image and audio. This design study explores these textural qualities, moving freely from the image of static, which triggers a collective memory, to subconscious encounters with textures and sounds. The aim is to create a unique, sensory experience for the cinema audience. As a result, the performance of acoustic materials, such as carpet, traditionally used in auditoriums, cinemas, and theatres, is reimagined. Instead of applying these absorptive materials inside the cinema halls, they are used in the spaces outside the cinema as well.
In terms of color palette, the proposal examines the tension between colored and black and white images as described by Vilém Flusser’s philosophical writings on photography. He duly notes that the deception of the technical image in colored photography affords us the ability to equate it with lived experience. However, the resistance of the Black & White image incessantly reminds us of the abstraction process of its mechanical production. This duality of perception is used in the design proposal to contrast the gray scale interior of the cinema space with the colorful real world outside it. In doing so, it highlights the complex relationship between cinema, culture, and lived experience. Covered in bright canary yellow carpet, the entrance to Hayy cinema stands in sharp contrast to the solemn white interiors of the Waiwai designed building.
