National Commercial Bank, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (Thirteen plans, preliminary study)

Skidmore Owings & Merrill

Gordon Bunshaft

1977

A sequence of felt‑tipped pen on tracing‑paper plan studies by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill proposing a folded triangular bank form that organizes a central courtyard, circulation routes, and service cores for the National Commercial Bank in Jeddah.

Across a warm yellow sheet, four near‑identical triangles repeat, their peach‑colored bands and darkened corners framing a small circular void at the center while shifts in hatching, cutouts, and ladderlike marks reveal different interior arrangements.

These drawings reveal the iterative design methods of late‑modernist architects, showing how a rigorous geometric idea was adapted to programmatic, climatic, and cultural demands in a major Middle Eastern commission.

Palette

Art Terms

Architectural drawing Plan drawing Architecture Drawing Built environment International Style

Exhibitions

Three New Skyscrapers

1983

Built in USA: Post-War Architecture

1953

Built in the U.S.A., 1932–44

1944

The House in the Museum Garden

1949