There is an aseptic violence in the way the space industry gives visual form to power. NEOM is the supreme dream of architecture, and The Line, its most famous piece, has set the world talking about its alleged absurdity: 170 kilometres of monumental mirrored facades cutting through the Saudi desert, sold as a post-carbon utopia and accelerator of human progress, through one of the most expensive CGI productions on the market. But NEOM has nothing irrational about it: it is a high-definition laboratory (and a playground) for geopolitical displays of strength, capillary technological control and pure demonstration of architectural arrogance.
Who puts their signature on it? Who draws the dream?
In architecture studios the render is immaculate: it does not stink of exploitation, of very low-cost labour, nor of neocolonial occupation. It is a visual alchemy that turns domination into a fait accompli, winning the approval of stakeholders and steering mass perception years before a single drop of concrete is poured.