JEDDAH CORNICE
A stroll through the chic hotel district takes in the King Fahd Fountain and an open-air museum.
The Corniche is a popular place for evening strolls. Bordering the Red Sea, north of Al-Balad, the bay has been landscaped with parks and gardens. There are kiosks where you can buy a snack, a coffee or a cold drink. The Corniche is the district of chic hotels and the shopping street of Palestine Street. It's also from here that you can best see the King Fahd Fountain, a powerful jet of water that rises 260 m, making it the highest fountain in the world. Inspired by the fountain in Geneva, King Fahd commissioned his own in 1980. It took five years to put the fountain into action. The water is propelled at 375 km/h and illuminated by 500 LEDs at night, allowing it to reflect all the colors of the rainbow.
The hollow of the bay has been transformed into an open-air museum. Twenty sculptures by renowned artists have taken possession of a park to form the Jeddah Sculpture Museum. The entire site was redesigned in 2013 and the statues restored, damaged by decades spent outdoors in the salty, muggy heat of the city. Works by Joan Miró stand alongside those by Henry Moore, Vasarely, Jean Arp, Sylvestre Monnier and Alexander Calder.
Only one Arab artist features in this first-rate exhibition: Maha Malluh. A native of Jeddah, she has created a sculptural triptych from cooking pots of various sizes, found at Saudi flea markets. The three columns symbolize the exchanges that take place around a meal.
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