From Dream to Reality

Workers stand before a hoarding showing the plan for the restoration of the Grand Mosque area. Besides the millions of pilgrims that visit annually, Mecca is home to more than a million inhabitants, making it the third-most populous city in Saudi Arabia. It also has a long history as a site for domestic trade. Here is one of the many billboards in the older city that mask construction sites. Dreams surround this city, a belief that Utopia can be created here. Yet time and again, as with every age of renovation, we live within a reality of drills, demolition, and destruction.