The pyramids of the 21st century? That's the vision of the Saudi tyrant whose dream for a 105-mile long desert city could cost $1 TRILLION... But with harsh reality biting already, will it ever be built?

Just imagine, if you can, a 105-mile long, pencil-thin horizontal skyscraper — a sidescraper — that cuts through high mountains and arid desert.

It will house a city of nine million people. There will be no cars or streets but flying taxis: oh and a giant fake moon, animatronic dinosaurs and an army of robots to harvest food, cook and clean for the pampered population. And carbon emissions will be zero.

As these fantastical concept pictures show, there would be nothing like the city of Neom anywhere on the planet. Which is no surprise.

The sci-fi architecture — often reminiscent of futuristic 1982 film Blade Runner — is indeed influenced by the masters of Hollywood special effects.

{The 105-mile long monolith will boast a stadium up a mountain, a ski resort of a Jurassic Island}

Throughout history, megalomaniac dreamers have sought to rival the ambition of Egyptian pharoahs and build their own equivalent of the great pyramids with varying degrees of success.

Now it is the turn of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud with his plans to create Neom. And it is already struggling to take shape in one of the world’s most barren places.

Detailed plans were unveiled this week for this vast metropolis and, with a price tag estimated to rise as high as $1 trillion, it is clear that they are getting ever more outlandish.

The big question, even with his country’s $620 billion sovereign wealth fund, not to mention the world’s second largest proven oil reserves to play with, is whether his vision is just too fantastical ever to be realised. It would be the biggest structure ever built — but could it become history’s most epic folly? bin Salman presides over an authoritarian regime that routinely jails, tortures and murders opponents — notably the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 — but MBS, as he’s known, has tried hard to be seen internationally as a reformer and moderniser.

And it doesn’t get much more modern than Neom, an amalgam of the Greek word for ‘new’ and the Arabic word for ‘future’,

{bin Salman presides over an authoritarian regime that routinely tortures and kills opponents - notably the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 - but he is keen to be seen as a moderniser.}

{Mohammad bin Salman reportedly told his advisers: 'I want to build my pyramids')

Announced in 2017 by the prince, Neom is the flagship project in a masterplan to diversify Saudi Arabia’s oil-dependent economy as the world increasingly turns to greener energy alternatives.

Five years on, Neom — which MBS insists must be finished by 2030 — has been plagued by setbacks as an army of workers and advisers struggle to cope with his mercurial temperament and ever-changing ideas.

MBS, 36, reportedly found the site for his dream city in Saudi Arabia’s remote province of Tabuk, after landing there in his helicopter. ‘I want to build my pyramids,’ he told advisers. He has already built a palace there.

But at least the pyramids were grounded in what was achievable at the time. An internal ‘style catalogue’ for Neom seen by Bloomberg News includes flying lifts, an urban ‘spaceport’ and buildings ‘shaped like a double helix, a falcon’s outstretched wings and a flower in bloom’. Neom will also feature a ski resort, The Vault, built into a man-made valley created by blowing a chunk out of a mountain (in winter, even in the desert, mountain-top temperatures plunge, so making fake snow outdoors is possible).

A yacht marina is planned for the Red Sea to lure holidaymakers who might otherwise have gone to the French Riviera.

MBS is a sci-fi fan and the Neom team has commissioned work from, among others, designers who created the look of the Guardians Of The Galaxy and Dark Knight Batman films, as well as a futurist who worked on the dystopian zombie movies World War Z and I Am Legend. Chris Gray, a California writer, says he was hired to research the ‘aesthetics’ of key sci-fi films and books, including Blade Runner.

{Neom commissioned those who designed Guardians Of The Galaxy and the Dark Knight films}

{MBS has hailed The Mirror Line (pictured) as ‘a civilisational revolution that puts humans first’}

{This 2020 image shows a car driving along a stretch of desert which is set to become Neom}

{Given Saudi Arabia’s shortage of homegrown engineering and design talent, vast sums are being splashed out on attracting thousands of foreigners}

Ref: The pyramids of the 21st century? That's the vision of the Saudi tyrant whose dream for a 105-mile long desert city could cost $1 TRILLION... But with harsh reality biting already, will it ever be built? (dailymail)