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Robert Matthew, Johnson-Marshall & Partners (today known as RMJM) had been hired to create master plans for several Hejazi Region cities.

you didnt hear much of Robert Matthew any-more, at least in that context.RS They were asked to design such buildings?BR They were the planners.RS Apparently they were never on site, or had

never experienced the Hajj.BR Well they had a few muslims on site. They had a big office in Jeddah.RS They handled the whole western region,

master planning Yanbu, Makkah, Jeddah.BR Yes. Now, Jeddah has a master plan, but Makkah and Madinah still dont have master plans.RS Do you think that the main drawback up to now

is that the human scale needs to be addressed?BR Well, one has to see it differently. The fact is that the Hajj is a traditional event originating thousands of years ago; its much older than Islam. Its recorded that the caravan from Damascus was 30 kilometers long. You can calculate that into about 150,000 to 200,000 people in one caravan. And there were about three or four of these cara-vans so you had Hajjs in the past with up to half a million people. The cities handled it somehow.

But the tent cities were moving the Hajj. It came into my consciousness recently that Arafat is the end stage of a caravan made permanent. Its not a tent city by itself. Its actually a moving city that got stuck. Its the same with Muna. Muna origi nated

BR Yes, but at that time, I wasnt strong and clear enough still too much of a student at the time. That was 35 years ago. Ive clarified a few things and have worked in Saudi Arabia now. Ive learned how the mechanisms work inside the country. I think that there are now also a lot of people think-ing in that direction. It would be easier now to organize an action.RS Would you have to undo what was done?BR No, we never undo. You just correct the direc tion and do something on top of it. You cant undo whats been done now. Makkah and Madinah the old cities have been erased. You cannot undo that.RS You did mention a prime example of undoing.BR That was King Khaleds undoing with the buildup of Muna.RS Was the Hajj Research Center involved there?BR No, unfortunately not. That credit goes to Kind Khaled alone. There were buildings all over the place. Each ministry and department of the govern-ment had their own lot with their own building.RS Something like an administrative complex

where We have to be there to administer the Hajj was the approach.

BR Yes, of course. But then it was demolished in a fortnight before the Hajj. It was in 76 or 77 something like that. That was amazing. After that,

Reda Sijiny You were one of the original members of the Hajj Research Center. Im interested in the centers approach to urbanism and planning.

Bodo Rasch Our approach, I would call, is basically romantic. On one side, we wanted to conserve the historic fabric of the city, the beauty of the an-cient buildings and so forth. On the other side, we wanted to use rational methods to ease the suf fer-ing of the people who are choked between cars and dust and structures. We thought that the most minimally invasive sheltering would be the right approach. With a minimum amount of structural impact, we would have achieved the maximum effect. We never got much farther than separating cars from people. Because without separating cars and people, every other effort is for nothing.RS What you have now in Makkah are people

using the tunnels and flyovers, which were meant for cars.

BR Yes. The other thing was the experience of the pedestrian Hajj. When we did this at the HRC, it was an uplifting experience. From then, it was clear to me that the Hajj was meant as a pedestrian event. You could say that there is no fatwa that prevents you from using a car the Prophet went on a camel, and so forth. But a camel is still a pe-des trian, in a way. To walk the Hajj if you do it it is so absolutely evident that thats the way it has to be done. If you walk for two hours from Arafat to Muzdalifah, and if you sit in a car for seventeen hours for the same distance, it becomes so obvious that this is supposed to be a pedestrian experience.

Still today, my major effort is to convince people that the pedestrian movement needs its own engineering. There is no engineering in the world that deals with this magnitude of pedestrian move-ment. There are recent institutions, like Crowd Dynamics from England, which can handle maybe 20,000 to 30,000 people, and then their programs collapse. It is evident that there is no engineering for a pedestrian flow of one or two million people. People say that you have to use common sense

and so forth. That is to some extent true, but there is a particular dynamism in a million people.

You could see that in Muzdalifah, where all of a sudden the pedestrian trail ends and there is this massive flow of people that doesnt know where to go. Then it starts slowing down and the flow backs up; a very dangerous situation arises. Of course Muna and many places in the Hajj have seen what they call stampedes. That is not really the right word. A stampede is more of a reaction out of panic. Pilgrims rarely ever panic. But there are pileups. And the pileups happen when there is no space. People push from the back not knowing that there is no way forward. So these are systems that need to be engineered. This engineering still does not exist.RS Were you hoping that the Hajj Research

Center would have done that?

HRC Director, Dr. Sami Angawi addressing audience at First World Conference on Muslim Education, Intercontinental Hotel & Conference Centre, Makkah, 1977.

The Hajj is a Myriad of DetailsBodo Rasch interviewed by Reda SijinyWispelwald, Stuttgart, Germany, November 15, 2009

In 1975 the Hajj Research Centre (HRC) was founded by architect Sami Angawi to address the Hajjs complex dynamics through the use of technology and analysis. The Jeddahbased think tank attracted a multidisciplinary team including statisticians, engineers, and sociologists. Bodo Rasch, a Stuttgartbased architect and founding member of HRC, explains how new approaches could release the Hajj organizers from relying on crisis management tactics.

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to 100,000 to 200,000 guests, and then its all of a sudden flooded with 2 or 3 million, you have a prob-lem. But with the Hajj, its an ever growing number. Now of course the government, they posted a quota. I think one per every million of a countrys muslim population can apply for the Hajj, and that limits the number. Otherwise, there would be ten times more.RS Do you think that there is still not enough

reaction from the government?BR I think that there is a lot of thinking in the government. It could become a major problem, although it hasnt become a major problem. I think that they do now what they can in order to bring the infrastructure up to at least the level of current numbers. I think they will spend a huge amount of money to bring in a proper infrastructureRS But it seems that the infrastructure comes

after all the hotels have sprung up.BR I dont think so. I think the hotels spring up, and they will be demolished if they are in the way. These hotels are amortized after five to seven years. If they have been demolished after ten or so years it is no harm to anybody.RS But it seems that the only reaction now is just

to provide accommodation space.BR There are very serious efforts on all levels.RS Im not saying on the governmental side, but

all private efforts now are just to build hotels.

as the end station of a caravan. The great caravans are historically and tech nically enor mously interesting, but nobody has researched them.RS Now the drive toward permanency in Muna

and Arafat is that still a major problem?BR I dont think its a major problem. There is a drive to permanency; thats just a fact. And the Hajj, from originally being a great caravan and a movement, it becomes symbolic. RS Now they advertise fivestar apartments

in Muna.BR But the normal person has a one-star room with six others in Makkah or Mina. It makes no dif-ference. The fact is that they come with air planes. They make the Hajj, and they go back with air-planes and are back home in two weeks.RS This immediacy BR Yes, the immediacy and also the inexpen sive-ness. For somebody to make a holiday for two weeks Europeans do it all over the place. They go for two weeks to Mallorca or wherever. Its the same tourism industry. Now with these companies participating in the Hajj, the number of Hajjis has increased from once an average of 100,000 to 200,000 to now over 2 million.RS Which is what the tourism industry aims for.BR Its what they want. On the other hand, if you have a city or a facility that is traditionally geared

Members of HRC equipping civil defense helicopter with special cameras to document Hajj.

established. Its still a dream. It was watered down into a paper pushing agency, or whatever it is now. One of the problems of the whole effort: every idea creates a big project. And when people get (their) hands on a big project they forget the ho lis-tic approach. I think that now is maybe the time to write about what the HRC could be. I would like to reissue my thesis on the Hajj and do it again, a second edition.RS Would you add a manifesto for the creation

of the Hajj Research Center?BR I dont believe in manifestos. But I would like to describe a scientific, technological, intellectual setup to improve the situation. Lets put it that way.RS Whats interesting about the HRC is that its

still a planning effort that has to create its own guidelines and theories.

BR As with technology, there is no applicable planning discipline that works for the Hajj, because its not a city. Its an event, needing event planning. I mean, Woodstock was chaos. It was not a planned event. We dont want the Hajj to look like that. But the difference is not so big at the moment.RS Then you realize that its not just planning

expertise that you need, but a multidisciplinary team.

BR What are planners doing? Planners are architects by and large designers that divide a city into a rational fabric of urban activities: markets, schools, hospitals. The urban planners of the world none of them understand Makkah and Madinah, not even the muslim ones. You can-not divide Makkah into urban zones with schools and markets.

In Stuttgart, traffic collapses if there is a national football game with 100,000 people. They come for Sunday afternoon and block the whole city. In Makkah you have two million people going to the mosque five times a day. There is nothing even remotely comparable.

Tokyo has three million people leaving and entering it every day. In Makkah, Tokyo is concen-trated on one square. Nobody has even a compre-hension of the scale of the problem. What they are doing, the traffic police and so on, its absolutely admirable management. Ive seen them working in the Hajj with six telephones in their hands. Its crisis management like nowhere in the world. Not even the British navy would be able to handle this. Its amazing.

But its still tinkering. Its not solving the prob-lem. As a Hajji, you dont want to be in a constant crisis thats being managed. You want to be doing your Hajj. I think that in the modern day and age, Makkah and the Hajj are absolutely an ideal field for research-based development on technology that solves these problems.

BR The fact is that the engineering for something like the Hajj cannot be bought from overseas. It hasnt been developed. Most government agencies think that you can buy the engineering in America or Europe. In this case, it doesnt work. You have to develop it. Even the scientific foundation for the engineering required is not there.

The idea of the Hajj Research Center now is more clear to me than 35 years ago. Its still a valid pursuit. Its as simple as this: technology develops not by itself, but it develops because it has to solve a task. The formulation of the task is actually the technological answer already. Something is developed because there is a need for something that doesnt exist.

Likewise, if you would say now that our aim is a smooth, safe, spiritually uplifting, and beautiful Hajj; its an architectural task, not an engineering task, because a lot of aesthetics come into it. But if you would define that, you would relatively soon start searching for means to solve certain detail prob-lems. This would give rise to a whole technology.RS and a whole (new) discipline: Hajj Design.BR It would be a discipline that would need its own engineering, its own everything. Germany has the best cars because we have no speed limit on the motorway. Its not because we made better cars, but because its survival here. In the same way, if you have a tool that can solve the pedestrian flow of the Hajj, you can solve all other pedestrian problems in the world. Likewise, if you solve the solid waste problem of the Hajj, you can solve any resorts waste problem easily.

Transportation is another open field. They need special trains. They have 10,000 or 20,000 buses to bring pilgrims from Makkah to Madinah. Its an astronomical number of absolutely normal buses. It takes two hours to load a bus like that. Now they talk about trains from Makkah to Madinah. I hear that they are talking about high speed trains. They stand around for three hours for a ride that should be 45 minutes. This is crazy. What you need is a train that is completely dif fer-ent from other trains that you can load and un load with people quickly. Two million people walk from Arafat to Muzdalifah in two and a half to three hours two million people. There is no transpor tation system in the world that would even accept three million people. You have to follow what the pilgrims need, not push what the technology offers.

By concentrating on the technology that needs to be invented for the Hajj, Saudi Arabia could be a leader in many fields of the technical development. Thats basically what our aim was at the HRC, but it was a bit too early. The Hajj Research Center, I would say, still has not been

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Staff of HRC during field research to monitor and document the Hajj. Bodo Rasch, right.

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great lengths for gymnasiums, and sports like tennis. There are incredible surfaces, you know. But for the pedestrians in the Hajj, they walk on asphalt.RS Maybe plain earth would be better.BR Yes, of course. But sand is also good. If the sand is too soft, its hard to walk. There is no consistent research on what is good for the feet to walk on. Its a simple thing. Another thing is that the Hajj is an enormous sanitary problem with two million people. Two million people have to take a leak and the other thing; its a pain in the freaking neck. If you have to go for a leak in the Hajj, its a trauma a continuous trauma.RS It is. If you ask every Hajji about his main

trauma, its always about finding that toilet.BR The reaction of the good, humble peasant from Anatolia or central Asia is: okay, they dont eat and they dont drink (so that they dont go to the toilet). Now, if they come into the heat, then they get dehydrated, and they get heatstroke.RS Diarrhea you cant control it.BR You cant control it. Now the Hajj is coming slowly into the hot season. In the heat there will be more problems with dehydration, more people looking for toilets.

Now, only to establish what kind of toilet is needed in what amount for what kind of pedestrian movement nobody knows. They say, we make

RS But are you saying that the seed was there with the Hajj Research Center?

BR That seed was there, but it didnt go any-where for several reasons. One of the reasons is certainly that many of the institutions, government or private, that get in touch with one of the real problems and finds a solution Big projects lead to contracts and then of course the money. Every-thing that Ive been doing in Makkah finds by itself its own meaning. To serve the Haramein and the Hajj is a different task than anything else. Even the Koran mentions this. Its not for everyone to solve. The foundation is that you have to be a believer. The pedestrian movement seems to be slow, but in the mass of it, its enormously fast. It can move one million people in one hour as far as you can a single person. Thats the incredible thing. You just need a simple infrastructure. You can, of course, make it comfortable. You can make a luxury infra-structure. You can think about what is a good floor to walk on. If you walk inside the mosque in Makkah, you realize after a while that you search for carpet. Why? Because its more pleasant for the feet. Now, you could devise a walkway that is as pleasant as a carpet.RS Not asphalt.BR No, asphalt is good for tires. Thats the point. There has been research done for over 50 years to

Staff of HRC during field research to monitor and document the Hajj around Muna tent city.

At the 10th Scientific Forum on Haj Researches in January 2010, an official announced that Hajj and Umrah pilgrims could send proposals and suggestions for improving services to the General Presi den cy for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques via its website: gph.gov.sa (Gulf News, January 28, 2010).

TV is an acronym for Technischer berwachungsverein, or the Technical Monitoring Association.

RS But not in the Haram?BR Inside the Haram you dont have them. Inside the Haram people are barefoot. Barefoot is perfect, because RS there is a grip.BR But those chep chep dont have one at all. So, if you get the producer of the chep cheps to produce one with a good grip The tire com-panies also study how the tires stick on the street. If there were a TV stamp on the chep chep There are thousands and thousands of these little problems. Yet, in spite of all that, ask people who have come through the worst chaos ever and they have been enlightened and say that the Hajj is wonderful, myself included. It only shows that in spite of the bad engineering and bad planning, God is still giving his baraka (blessings) over the whole thing. The storm water channel in Arafat is one of my key experiences in the Hajj. When you leave Arafat, there is a storm water channel in Wadi Arafa. It goes six meters down. Then there is the Wadi, and then it goes six meters up. There are two pedestrian bridges of ten meters crossing (width) to carry a million people that walk. So, a million people should go over a ten meter bridge that can carry 10,000 people an hour. Thats 100 hours. With two bridges, its 50 hours. They forget about the bridge and go down and then back up the Wadi.

People help each other to go up this con-crete slope that the engineers created. They could have put some steps in it, but they didnt. Its a slope of 30 or 45 degrees, six meters up. So some people carry their elders up, and they slip. And they all start laughing. Its a party. They realized that they are helping each other into paradise physically. And then they get euphoric. And that is how it is in spite of the engineering.

No matter what you do, its always working. But to do something good, there wouldnt be a harm. And you have as great plan that you just help the people to do their worship with as little distur-bance as possible. Its not like some people say that its only the prayer in the mosque and Jamarat (Stoning of the Devil) and whatever. Its the whole of the Hajj. Even choosing accommodations, its all part of the worship. Even the eating of a hamburger. Thats why it should be a nice hamburger. Its not so much about the grand plans. Its the sum of the little things.

10,000 toilets. What is 10,000 toilets for two million people? It sounds like a lot, but its nothing. Maybe double that number would be okay.

The European toilet is called a flush toilet. The whole sewage system works with gravity and water. It comes from London a city drowning in water and is called a WC a water closet. Now, to put a sewage system with gravity and water in the desert is really dumb. You have to desalinate the water in Jeddah. You have to take all the farm water from Wadi Fatmah to flush the toilet for a little child. Thats a pity. Twenty liters of water. Its like the train that goes in the night with one person. Its the same technological achievement. To do it differently is not so difficult. There are systems; for example, the vacuum, like in an airplane. They use one on Dubais Palm Jumeirah. Air is in much greater supply with air and 10% water.

At the Hajj Research Center, we designed a thing that was meant to work for three days. You know in Mina that the people are only there for three days. So you could have an enclosed system like in an airplane with the water reservoir and a sewage container. And you have the whole thing contained. After the Hajj, you have the whole year to treat it. I did a whole study on the sanitary sys-tem. I even wrote to Villeroy & Boch but it never went anywhere. Even the shape of the squatting pan has to be different. There are people from Fiji Island that live on the water, and people from New York who live on five-star living. Both kinds of people have to be able to use it. So who has the best recipe for that? That question demands a whole body of researchers. RS In other words, you are saying that the

solutions to the Hajj are not necessarily these big structures and architectural projects?

BR No, its the details. You have a problem. You name the problem. The Hajj Research Center should be able to formulate the problem. And in the formulation of the problem is already the solution.

Another example: there are lots of injuries. One reason is because there are a lot of shiny marble floors causing people to slip when it rains. Nowhere in the Western world would marble out-doors be allowed to be shiny. On the other hand, nowhere outdoors is as clean as Makkah and Madinah, which we like because its washed a lot. Washing makes the marble shiny, and shiny marble is easier to clean. So we dont want to change this. What makes people slip are the slip-pers, the chep chep which they make in Saudi Arabia. Its a Chinese product that is produced in Saudi Arabia. These chep cheps are sold by the millions. And they are the cause of accidents more than anything else.