Heritagization of Historic Sites: Transformation of Al Diriyah from a Ruin to a Branded Cultural Capital

Heritagization, the process of recognizing and promoting objects, places, and practices of significant cultural heritage, plays a key role in fostering cultural richness and identity of a given community. It could also promote urban regeneration, cultural tourism, and economic growth. Although widely implemented across the world, its impacts on historical sites remain insufficiently explored. In this context, this research examines heritagization as an urban branding strategy implemented at the Historic Al Diriyah site in Riyadh. Positioned within the "Heritagization of historical ruins" context, it examines the evolution of Al Diriyah from ruins to a revived cultural capital, integrating tradition and modernity in a large-scale urban branding project. It employs an exploratory, qualitative case study as a research method and uses examination of documents and field research for data collection. The documents involved secondary sources, such as academic publications, newspaper reports, and promotional materials from the online platform of the official site of Al Diriyah. To supplement this, field research is carried out to generate firsthand information through observations and interviews. The fieldwork took place in August 2022, before the grand opening of the regenerated site, allowing for a thorough investigation of the transformation of the site in real time. The findings reveal that the heritagization process, initially aimed at the preservation of historical ruins, has extended beyond mere preservation to rebrand the site as a revived cultural capital. This transformative process revitalizes previously neglected sites, turning them into thriving hubs for cultural tourism. However, it also demonstrates the risks of commodification of culture and over-commercialization of cultural heritage. The research concludes that heritagization can celebrate and promote cultural heritage, and by employing it for branding sites, it can generate substantial cultural transformations and economic benefits. Nevertheless, it is argued that these practices necessitate careful management to safeguard the dynamic and evolving nature of the heritage sites.