King Khaled International Airport
Transportation History Cultural Studies Aviation History Middle Eastern History Architectural History Saudi Arabia Collectible Reference
King Khaled International Airport – Paul B Moore’s lavishly illustrated hardcover – is the definitive collector’s reference on one of the world’s largest and most opulent aviation hubs. Published in a small print run for dignitaries and consultants who worked on the 1983 opening, the book quickly disappeared from commerce; today it surfaces almost exclusively in libraries or royal archives. This copy arrives with its original dust jacket and all 240 pages of colour plates intact, making it a high-point for anyone assembling a shelf on Saudi, Middle-Eastern or aviation history.
Inside, Moore—an architect who spent five years on-site—documents every design decision, from the Bedouin-tent roofline of the passenger terminals to the hand-cut desert marble floors that cool in 50 °C heat. The photographs were shot on large-format film, so the tonal depth and desert light remain breathtaking four decades later. Interviews with Lt Col Ali Hassan Abdul Ghani, the project’s military liaison, give first-hand insight into how a remote air-base metamorphosed into a city-state-sized gateway capable of handling the annual Hajj influx.
Because the edition was never offered to bookstores, copies with the jacket are genuinely scarce; this one carries a neat gift inscription (not from the author) and only light foxing to the first few leaves—common in Riyadh-printed titles of the era. For collectors of Middle-Eastern ephemera, aviation memorabilia, or late-twentieth-century architecture, King Khaled International Airport is the one volume that turns a shelf into a curated exhibit.
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