JEDDAH: The Jeddah municipality is scheduled to hold today a workshop entitled the “Strategic Planning Project for Art in Jeddah Streets,” which is part of a project that aims to beautify the city with sculptures and paintings, according to a city official.
The workshop will be attended by municipal officials and local artists to discuss suitable locations for installing the works, said Ashraf Al-Turki, head of the Planning and Design Department at the municipality.
He said the workshop would also discuss where to place existing monuments that were shifted due to road development projects.
The main beautifying project, which is named Jeddah Art, works under two objectives: Identifying new locations for fresh artworks in streets, intersections and roundabouts and evaluating the need for the maintenance and development of existing sculptures.
Al-Turki said the workshops and field visits would be monitored and evaluated by a special committee comprising officials from various departments to ensure a satisfactory outcome from the Jeddah Art project.
“Jeddah is one of the leading cities in the world in terms of the number and value of street sculptures and monuments,” he said.
According to municipal figures, the city hass 522 monuments and paintings, including works by internationally renowned artists, such as Henry Moore, Cesar Baldaccini, Victor Vasarely and La Fontaine. Some of the monuments are worth millions of riyals and others are considered priceless. At least 76 monuments and 15 fountains were removed due to road works, of which 13 have been repositioned and five damaged.
