Norman Foster was embroiled in religious and political controversy yesterday about a multimillion-pound project to redevelop Mecca, Islam’s holiest site.

As millions of Muslims from around the world prepared to make the annual haj (pilgrimage to Mecca), a leading Saudi architect denounced the plans for the city. The criticism, which is shared with other Saudis, is unusual because the project has the blessing of the Saudi monarch.

Sami Angawi, an expert of Islamic architecture in Mecca and Medina, said he was “surprised and upset” to learn of confidential plans, leaked last week, in which the holiest Islamic city would be redesigned by “outsiders”.

“You cannot redesign such a place without a deep feeling and knowledge of it,” Mr Angawi, 59, told The Times in a telephone interview from his home in Jeddah.

Lord Foster of Thames Bank and Zaha Hadid are among a group of “starchitects” reportedly invited by King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz to re-envision Mecca, including an extension around the central Haram mosque that would enable it to accommodate up to three million pilgrims.

None of the experts is thought to be Saudi and many are not Muslim and, consequently, are forbidden from even entering the holy city. “When you design a mosque, you need to be able to experience it. I feel very confused about such a decision,” Mr Angawi said, emphasising he was not against Western influence but believed the project should include local experts. “We have to be in charge,” he said.

His comments suggest the emergence of a wider discontent in Saudi Arabia about how the construction project is being managed.

Even before plans to redevelop the Haram mosque were reported in The Architects’ Journallast week there was concern about renovations already under way in Mecca, including the demolition of historic buildings to make way for high-rise hotels and apartment blocks that dominate the city skyline.

Modern Mecca, with its branches of Top Shop and Starbucks, is all but unrecognisable from the city that became part of the Saudi kingdom in 1932. Conservationists claim that hundreds of historic buildings have been demolished.

A report by the Saudi British Bank, one of the biggest lenders in the kingdom, estimated this year that £15 billion would be invested by foreign and Saudi companies in construction and infrastructure in Mecca by 2012. Homes and hills are to be replaced by about 130 skyscrapers, including the Abraj al-Bait Towers, which is to be one of the biggest buildings in the world. The seven towers will include a 2,000-room hotel, a convention centre big enough for 1,500 people, heliports and a four-storey shopping mall.

At the centre of the development will be the redesign of the mosque and its surrounding area. The King is understood to have recruited 18 leading architects, engineers and construction companies to “establish a new architectural vision” for the 356,800sq m mosque complex.

According to The Architects’ Journal the first part of the project will increase the capacity of the mosque from 900,000 to 1.5 million. Once the scheme is completed capacity for the district should be 3 million.

The proposals have been split into two. Foster & Partners, which is headed by Lord Foster, is one of ten practices that will look at alternatives for the northern expansion of the Haram mosque. Ms Hadid, who was born in Iraq, has been given the key job of coming up with ideas for the mosque, as well as the central district. Several other well-known foreign architects have been linked with the job as well as two British engineers – Adams Kara Taylor and Faber Maunsell.

Lord Foster, 73, who did not wish to comment on the project, is certainly qualified for the job. He designed the Gherkin building in London and the new Beijing airport, which is the one of the largest buildings on Earth.

Any development in Mecca is fraught with religious and political problems. Public dissent in the conservative Kingdom is rare, with few people willing to openly challenge the decisions of the King and his advisors. Mr Angawi, however, who studied architecture at the University of Texas and received a doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, is known as an outspoken critic and said that others shared his views.

“Some of them are from very high levels, but they cannot talk,” said Mr Angawi, who has devoted his life to preserving the heritage of Mecca since he returned to Saudi Arabia in 1975.

The scheme to redevelop the mosque suggests his battle will likely be lost.

In recent years the number of Muslims making the haj has swelled beyond three million. Saudi Arabia has been attempting to cater to wealthier pilgrims with new developments, while investors – many with links to the Saudi royal family, are profiting.

In the building boom the house of Muhammad’s first wife Khadija – where Muslims believe the Prophet received some of the first revelations of the Koran – has been lost under the construction, as was the Dar al-Arqam, the first Islamic school, where Muhammad taught.

“What is going on is horrible. It’s indescribable,” Mr Angawi said. “Mecca is being blown into pieces, and then they say, we’ll bring in the best architects to fix this . . . I feel sorry for them.”

In the past Western companies have redeveloped parts of Mecca, but not without facing unusual challenges.

Ten years ago United Automation, a Los Angeles company, won a bid to rewire the sound system in the mosques in Mecca. American engineers completed most of the project in a warehouse in California, where the sound system had to be assembled and tested, because they were barred from the city. A team of Muslim mosque technicians had to be flown to Los Angeles to learn how to install and run the system.

Because no noise can be transmitted over the system except for the voice of an imam reading from the Koran, they devised a way of testing the speakers without sound.

Mr Angawi said times have changed: “There is a lot of expertise right here in Saudi Arabia. It is not 50 years ago. We have the knowledge to do this ourselves.”

The path of pilgrims

— The haj is one of the five pillars of Islam and is a religious obligation to be fulfilled at least once in the lifetime of a Muslim

— Holy Islamic sites include the Kaaba in Mecca, Mina and Medina

— About three million people made the pilgrimage this year

— Security at the haj is provided by 100,000 Saudis

Stampedes during the haj killed 1,426 people in 1990, 251 in 2004, 363 in 2006

Sources: Times archives

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