Dezeen's Gunseli Yalcinkaya became the first overseas design journalist to attend Saudi Design Week in Riyadh earlier this month ? a visit that coincided with the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. With world attention focused on the Saudi regime, she writes about her experience of visiting the desert kingdom.

 
The walls of Saudi Arabia's brand new Ministry of Culture are covered in intricate patterns, Islamic geometric motifs that, from afar, appear to be crafted from metal. On closer inspection, you notice a facade pasted onto the outer surface. Go inside and you enter a series of dingy offices. Things aren't what they seem.
Until five months ago, the Ministry of Culture did not exist, yet it is already lauded among locals as one of the leading sources of support for the creative industries, or that is the impression I received when attending Saudi Design Week as, according to the organisers, the first international design reporter to enter the kingdom. Saudi Design Week founded five years ago
In its fifth year, the five-day event is still in its infancy. It is held at the King Abdul Aziz Centre for National Dialogue in the country's capital Riyadh, a monolithic conference centre on a busy road, surrounded by a busier car park lined with Uber taxis. The centre is named after the grandfather of the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is allegedly involved in the disappearance and brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Saudi Design Week 2018, which t...