ABSTRACT
In 2014, the International Trade Union Confederation reported that 1,200 construction labourers had died and up to 7,000 migrant workers might die building eight iconic stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a deathly (sacrificial) exchange crystallised in the architectural image and its grotesque actualisation in space. Turning to a discussion of Zaha Hadid’s Al-Wakrah Stadium, this chapter examines how the iconic architecture industry has precipitated a return to archaic urbanism in the oil-rich dictatorships of the former Soviet Union and Arab world, which are erecting iconic megaprojects under neo-feudal labour conditions as a means to gain membership in a transnational neo-capitalist class that venerates the violence of technology.
