Located in the Al Deerah District of Riyadh’s old center, the National Museum is well worth a visit, both architecturally and as a museum. Don’t worry – it’s not a “fuddy-duddy natural history museum”, rather a lively place to learn essentials about Saudi Arabia.
Architecture
The museum building itself is in keeping with contemporary architecture. For the architecture, the planners were inspired by the shapes and colours of the sand dunes of the “Red Sands” just outside Riyadh. The west façade is a key design feature of the museum. Along the vis-à-vis of the Murabba Palace, its curved wall of local limestone takes on the gentle contour of a sand dune. The museum’s overall architecture is inspired by the folk building tradition of the Najd, with its simple mud walls and restrained surface decoration.
Cultural Highlight
As a cultural highlight, the museum offers you a perfect and easy-to-understand overview of Saudi Arabia’s heritage with partly very rare as well as beautiful exhibits.
You should take enough time to visit this museum and immerse yourself in the developmental era of the country, from prehistoric and early history to the founding days of KSA. The museum entertainingly orients you as a visitor about the natural, human, cultural, political and religious development of the Arabian Peninsula and the Saudi state and therefore gives a picture of the country that arouses interest for more information and exploration.
Address:
East to King Saud Road and south to Al Washm Street, GPS coordinates: 24.6465017,46.7093148; National Museum, Riyadh 12631.
Opening hours:
The museum is open for visitors starting 9 am until 8 pm Saturday to Wednesday, and from 2 pm to 10 pm on Thursdays and Fridays. It is closed on Sundays.
Web:
If you want to know more also about the museum, the history and the city’s architecture, you can read about it in my ebook “Dr. Hans-F. Loth – Travel Guide Riyadh and Jeddah”.
