Saudi culture · presented to the world
Saudi culture, presented to the world.
Pavilions, seasons, forums and the Saudi table — curated, designed, engineered, fabricated, shipped, installed and operated by Cedrus International® House of Ci. One house in Riyadh and ten cities, so the Kingdom’s story arrives in Cannes, Paris or Milan exactly as it was approved in Diriyah.
Riyadh · Diriyah · Ten cities · One accountable team
The house and the Kingdom’s story
A cultural presentation is not a stand. It is a story that has to travel.
Saudi Arabia is telling its story abroad more often, and more ambitiously, than at any point in its history — at luxury travel markets, world expositions, biennials, film festivals, sporting summits and state visits. Each time, the same question: who holds the whole thing? The curator, the designer, the engineer, the joinery workshop, the freight agent, the installer, the hosts who pour the coffee and the team that strikes the hall at midnight are usually eight different companies in three countries, and the story leaks at every handover.
The House of Ci holds it as one. Narrative and curatorial direction, scenography and architecture, structure and MEP, joinery and furniture made in our own workshops, brand and signage, content and programme, freight, installation, operation and strike — six of our nineteen solutions working to one brief, one price and one calendar, under one project director. In the Kingdom and in the nine cities the house works from, so the pavilion that opens in Europe is the pavilion that was approved in Riyadh.
linked solutions
cities, one house
years of practice
team, end to end
I · What we present
Three kinds of presentation, one standard of care.
Whether the audience is five hundred buyers in a European hall, a ministry delegation in Riyadh or forty guests around one table, the discipline does not change: the story first, then the room, then the detail that proves it.
Pavilions that travel
National, destination and cultural pavilions for fairs, expositions, biennials and summits abroad — concept, scenography, structure, lighting, AV, joinery and furniture drawn in Riyadh, fabricated in our workshops, shipped, installed on site and struck. Customs, method statements, venue compliance and local labour handled by the house.
Seasons, forums and activations at home
Cultural seasons, national days, forums, exhibitions, openings and heritage activations across the Kingdom — from an empty hall or an open site to a programme that runs on time, with stage, set, LED, sound, light, furniture, signage and the whole operating plan from one team.
The Saudi table
Hospitality as part of the design, not an afterthought: majlis seating, the coffee and dates ritual, traditional Saudi cuisine served in a room built for it, uniforms, tableware, scent, music and the gift a guest carries home — each piece specified, sourced and staged with the same care as the architecture.
II · Six doors, one programme
Six of the nineteen solutions, working as one.
There is no twentieth solution for culture. A cultural programme simply calls six of the house’s existing rooms at once — and because they are rooms in the same house, nothing is lost between them.
III · How it travels
From the curatorial brief to the last crate home.
Six stages, one team, one calendar — and a rehearsal before anyone books a flight.
Story & curatorial brief
What the Kingdom is saying, to whom, and in what order a visitor should feel it. Narrative, audience, protocol and the objects or crafts the presentation will carry — agreed before a single line is drawn.
Design & single price
Scenography, plans, material boards and photoreal views, with a bill of quantities you can read line by line — one number, fixed before the details, including freight, installation and strike.
Engineering & venue compliance
Structure, rigging, electrical, fire and accessibility resolved together and submitted to the venue in its own format — Riyadh, Cannes, Milan or Paris — with our engineers sitting the reviews.
Workshop & rehearsal
Joinery, vitrines, furniture and finishes pre-fabricated and pre-assembled in our workshops, lit and photographed before they are crated, so the first time the pavilion stands is not on the show floor.
Freight, install & operate
Customs, crates, local labour, night installs, technical rehearsals, hosts, hospitality and the daily run of show — with the same project director on site, in whichever country the hall is in.
Strike, storage & the next edition
Clean strike to the venue’s deadline, condition report, reusable elements catalogued and stored, and a design that is built to come back next year rather than to be thrown away.
Culture is detail under deadline. Ours is drawn in Riyadh, made in our own workshops, and carried abroad by the people who made it — so a Najdi pattern is cut to the right geometry, the coffee is served at the right moment, and the hall is empty by the hour the venue asked for.
Made in the house
Najdi geometry, turned timber, leather and stone — specified, made and installed by one house.
A presentation is believed or disbelieved at arm’s length. Every surface a guest can touch is sampled in your hand before it is made, and made by the people who will install it.
Geometric marquetry · Turned timber · Leather · Book-matched stone — Custom Furniture, Joinery & FF&E →
Diriyah · Riyadh
We are global, and at home.
Every presentation of Saudi culture begins in the same place. Diriyah is where the Kingdom began, and it is where our references begin too: the mud-brick walls of At-Turaif, the light through a lantern passage, the proportion of a Najdi courtyard, the triangular openings that cool a room without a machine. The house reads that language as architecture — not as decoration to be printed on a wall — and carries it into halls in Riyadh, Jeddah, AlUla, the Red Sea and the nine cities abroad where it also works. From here, with a Saudi team, to anywhere the Kingdom is invited.
IV · Questions
Presenting Saudi culture abroad — questions we are asked.
Can one house really cover curation, design, build, freight and hospitality?
Yes — that is what the nineteen solutions are for. A cultural programme calls six of them at once: exhibitions and pavilions, events and experiential production, knowledge and content, brand and signage, furniture and FF&E, and project and programme management. They sit in one house, under one project director, on one contract.
Do you work outside Saudi Arabia?
Constantly. The house works from ten cities — Riyadh, Dubai, Beirut, Paris, Milan, Barcelona, London, Los Angeles, Bogota and New York — so a pavilion in Cannes, Milan or Paris is installed by our own people, with local labour and customs handled by the same team that drew it.
Who owns the design and the content?
You do. When a concept is brought to us we build it faithfully and credit its author; when the house is asked to design, the drawings, the narrative and the fabrication package are yours on handover, including the files you need to rebuild the pavilion for its next edition.
Can you serve traditional Saudi hospitality inside the design?
Yes, and we prefer to design the room around it: the majlis and its seating, the coffee and dates ritual, the kitchen or back-of-house a caterer will need, tableware, uniforms, scent and the gift a guest carries home — specified as part of the architecture, not bolted on at the end.
How early should we come to you?
At the brief, not at the tender. The cheapest hour on any cultural programme is the first one: the narrative, the venue’s rules, the freight window and the budget decide the design, and a design drawn after those are fixed never has to be redrawn.
What does a pavilion cost?
It follows the hall, the hours you are given to install, the level of craft and how much of the structure is meant to come back next year. What we give you is one price, line by line, with freight, installation and strike inside it — and, if it lands above your budget, a working session on the bill of quantities rather than a surprise.
Begin
Bring us the story.
Tell us the audience, the hall and the dates. Within days you have a narrative, a first scenography and a single price — and one team that carries it from Riyadh to the show floor and back.
info@Ci.Design · +1 202 524 1794 · Riyadh · Dubai · Beirut · Paris · Milan · Barcelona · London · Los Angeles · Bogota · New York
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