Building a Dream: Pan Arab Modernism in Kuwait in the 1960s

Abstract

Kuwait’s post-oil modernisation is often attributed to a sequence of masterplans designed by British architects and planners. Throughout the recent history of Kuwait’s urban development, these plans foreshadowed policies mediated by local actors and an ambitious public infrastructure building conceived by a new Arab muhandis (architect-engineer). This paper seeks to illuminate a specific period in Kuwait’s architectural and urban history that was facilitated by Arab actors hired in the 1960s in different capacities, and the emergence of the Arab architectural firm in the 1970s. By taking on the role of “expert,” refining what it means to be a muhandis, and by looking at more regional references, these local actors were able to experiment, attempting to develop a distinctly Arab architectural and urban modernism situated in a global modernist movement. This paper offers an expanded reading of the making of Kuwait’s architectural and urban production beyond the polarisation between imported masterplans and locally produced building knowledge and the role played by muhandis in such development.

Keywords:

• Kuwait
• Pan-Arabism
• Arab nationalism
• expert
• muhandis

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Jiat-Hwee Chang, Eunice Seng, Cathy Coote, Sara Soares Saraçosa, Joseph Watson, Suha Hasan, and Lee Stickells for their comments and feedback.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Saba George Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization: Documentation, Analysis, Critique: Being an Urbanistic Case-Study of a Developing Country (Kuwait: Kuwait Municipality, 1964), 36.

2 The Development Board was a colonial mechanism the British employed to transition from colonial to independent rule. Often administered and appointed by the British, the Development Board was conceived as an entity that would oversee all aspects of construction and development, including education, infrastructure, and housing. Several British colonies and protectorates had Development Boards, including Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq, Nigeria, and Ghana. In Kuwait specifically, the Development Board was modeled after the “success” of the Iraqi Development Board. For a detailed account of the role of the Development Board in Iraq, see Toby Dodge, Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation-Building and a History Denied (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Gerwin Gerke, “The Iraq Developmental Board and British Policy, 1945–50,” Middle Eastern Studies 27, no. 2 (April 1951): 231–55; Mahmud Al-Habib, “The Iraqi Development Board,” The Southwestern Social Science Quarterly 36, no. 2 (September 1955): 185–90.

3 Farah Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2016); Reem Alissa, “Building for Oil: Corporate Colonialism, Nationalism and Urban Modernity in Ahmadi, 1946–1992” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2012); Asseel al-Ragam, “Towards a Critique of an Architectural Nahdha: A Kuwaiti Example” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2008).

4 For example, see Youssef M. Choueiri, Arab Nationalism—A History: Nation and State in the Arab World (Oxford ; Malden, Mass: Blackwell Pub, 2000); Rashid Khalidi, Lisa Anderson, Muhammad Muslih, and Reeva S. Simon, eds., The Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991).

5 Suha Hasan, “The Imagination of an Aesthetic Regime in the Modern Arab City: Dissent, Redistribution of the Sensible, Poetics,” in Architectural Dissonances, ed. Corina Oprea, Alessandro Petti, Marie-Louise Richards, Tatiana Pinto, and Robert Burchardt (L’Internationale Online, 2021), 76, https://www.daas.academy/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/internationaleonline-epub-2021_architecturaldissonances_web24_compressed.pdf.

6 The Arab Nationalism of the 1950s can be traced to the mid-nineteenth-century Arab Nahḍa (renaissance) which reemerged in the interwar period of the 1930s. See George Antonius, Arab Awakening (Safety Harbor, FL: Simon Publications, 1939); Abdulrazzak Patel, The Arab Nahḍah: The Making of the Intellectual and Humanist Movement, Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013); Khalidi, et al., The Origins of Arab Nationalism; Abdel Razzaq Takriti, “Political Praxis in the Gulf: Ahmad al-Khatib and the Movement of Arab Nationalists, 1948–1969,” in Arabic Thought against the Authoritarian Age: Towards an Intellectual History of the Present, ed. Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 259–82.

7 On this, see Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed.

8 Takriti, “Political Praxis in the Gulf,” 261.

9 The non-aligned movement (NAM) was spearheaded by Jawaharlal Nehru, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and other leaders in the so-called “Third World” who did not formally want to align with or against a major power bloc after 1945 and consisted of 120 nations. See Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss, eds., Arabic Thought against the Authoritarian Age: Towards an Intellectual History of the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).

10 On the shift towards Arab professionals and literature, see Abdul Aziz al-Rushaid, Tārikh Al-Kuwait [Kuwait history] (Kuwait: Dar Qurdas, 1999).

11 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 168.

12 On the critique of one-way exchange see William S.W. Lim and Jiat-Hwee Chang, eds., Non West Modernist Past: On Architecture and Modernitites (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co, 2012); Nasser Rabbat, “What Is Islamic Architecture Anyway?,” Journal of Art Historiography 6 (June 2012): 1–15, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/what-is-islamic-architecture-anyway/docview/1021054388/se-2; Sanoja Bhaumik, “Can Western Architecture Ever Be Truly Decolonial? The ‘Project of Independence’ at MoMA Probes the Limits of Modernist Construction in South Asia.,” Hyperallergic, June 27, 2022, https://hyperallergic.com/738421/can-western-architecture-ever-be-truly-decolonial/.

13 Roberto Fabbri, Sara Saragoça, and Ricardo Camacho, Modern Architecture Kuwait: 1949–1989 (Zurich: Niggli, 2016), vol. 1. The appeal of Japanese architects in the Arabian Gulf is also explored in Amale Andraos, Nora Akawi, and Caitlin Blanchfield, introduction to The Arab City: Architecture & Representation (New York: Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2016).

14 Stephen Gardiner, Kuwait: The Making of a City (Harlow: Longman Group Limited, 1983).

15 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization.

16 John Grindrod, “Planning the Model City of Kuwait,” Official Architecture and Planning, (August 1953): 374–78; Farmer & Dark, “Naif Avenue, Kuwait,” Architectural Review 113 (February 1953), 72, 126; P.W. Macfarlane, “Planning an Arab Town: Kuwait on the Persian Gulf,” Journal of Town Planning Institute 40, no. 5 (April 1954): 110–13; Elizabeth Monroe, Britian’s Moment in the Middle East 1914–1956 (London: Methuen & Co Ltd., 1964); E. A. V. de Candole, “Developments in Kuwait,” Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 42, no. 1 (1955): 21; R.L. Banks, “Notes in a Visit to Kuwait,” Town Planning Review 26, no. 1 (April 1955): 49.

17 Studio Architetti BBPR, “The Future Development of the Old City of Kuwait” (Kuwait: Ministry of Planning, 1969); Studio Architetti BBPR, “General Development Plan” (Kuwait: Ministry of Planning, 1973).

18 Charles Haddad. A National Physical Development Plan For Kuwait 1970–1990: A Process and The Strategy (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies of Developing Areas, Spring 1970); Charles Haddad. Public Housing Policy in Rapidly Developing Countries, Kuwait and Singapore as Case Studies (Cambridge, MA: MIT Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies of Developing Areas, 1970); Charles Haddad. Urban Development and Rapid Economic Growth: The Kuwaiti Experience, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies of Developing Areas, Fall 1969).

19 Arlene Fullterton and Geza Fehervari, eds., Kuwait Arts and Architecture: A Collection of Essays (Kuwait: Arlene Fullerton and Geza Fehervari, 1995).

20 Mohammed Alajmi, “History of Architecture in Kuwait: The Evolution of Kuwaiti Traditional Architecture Prior to the Discovery of Oil” (PhD diss., University of Nebraska, 2009); Mae Al-Ansari, “Irreducible Essence: Tectonics & Cultural Expression in Traditional Forms of Kuwaiti Dwelling” (MSArch thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2011); Mae Al-Ansari, “Masked in the Protective Act: Women Public Housing and the Construction of Modern/National Identities in Kuwait” (PhD diss., University of Cincinnati, 2016); Muhannad Albaqshi, “The Social Production of Space: Kuwait’s Spatial History” (PhD diss., Illinois Institute of Technology, 2010); Turkiyah Hajeej Alenazy, “The Privacy and Social Needs of Women in Contemporary Kuwaiti Homes” (MFA thesis, Florida State University, 2007); Saad Algharib, “Spatial Patterns of Urban Expansion in Kuwait City Between 1989 and 2001” (MA thesis, Kent State University, 2008); Esra Alhabib, “A Study on Diwaniyas and Their Social and Political Impact on the Kuwaiti Society” (master's thesis, American University, 2009); Mohammad K. Al-Jassar, “Constancy and Change in Contemporary Kuwait City: The Socio-Cultural Dimensions of The Kuwaiti Courtyard and Diwaniyya” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2009); Anas Alomaim, “Nation Building in Kuwait 1961–1991” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2016); Muneerah Alrabe, “Spatial Practice: The Politics of ‘Activating’ Public Space in the State of Kuwait” (SM thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016); al-Ragam, “Towards a Critique of an Architectural Nahdha”; Sharifa Alshalfan, “The Right to Housing in Kuwait: An Urban Injustice in a Socially Just System,” Kuwait Programme on Development, Governance and Globalisation in the Gulf States 28 (London: London School of Economics, May 2013); Benyameen Ghareeb, “The Interplay between ‘Tradition,’ ‘Modernity,’ and Uneven Development: The Historical Development of Housing in Kuwait, 1950-2005” (PhD diss., University of Cincinnati, 2020).

21 Alissa, “Building for Oil”; Farah Al-Nakib, “Kuwait City: Urbanisation, the Built Environment and the Urban Experience Before and After Oil (1716–1986)” (PhD diss., University of London, 2011).

22 Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed.

23 Roberto Fabbri, Sara Saragoça, and Ricardo Camacho, Modern Architecture Kuwait: 1949–1989 (Salenstein: Niggli, 2016); Ricardo Camacho, Sara Saragoça, and Roberto Fabbri, eds., Essays, Arguments & Interviews on Modern Architecture Kuwait (Salenstein: Niggli, 2018); Ricardo Camacho, Dalal Musaed Alsayer, and Sara Saragoça Soares, eds., Pan-Arab Modernism 1968–2018: A History of Architectural Practice in the Middle East, (Barcelona: Actar Publishers, 2021).

24 See Banks, “Notes in a Visit to Kuwait”; P.W. Macfarlane, “Town Building in Kuwait: Rebuilding a Middle East Capital,” The Times: Review of Industry 5, no. 57 (October 1951): 91.

25 Many of these British professionals fared quite poorly in their professional appointments due to their lack of knowledge and language skills. See Simon C. Smith, “The Making of a Neo-Colony? Anglo-Kuwaiti Relations in the Era of Decolonization,” Middle Eastern Studies 37, no. 1 (January 2001): 159–72.

26 Richard Trench, ed., Arab Gulf Cities: Kuwait City (Oxford: Archive Editions, 1994), 607.

27 Smith, “The Making of a Neo-Colony?,” 167.

28 Kuwait’s pre-1950 urban fabric had been defined by courtyard houses with narrow streets and bound by three consecutive aswār (singular sūr)(city wall) that were built in 1760, 1793, and 1920 respectively, as a defensive mechanism and to ward off attacks from neighbouring tribes. ’Abd ’Allāh al-Ḥatim, Mn Hūna Badat Al-Kuwayt [From Here Kuwait Began] (Kuwait: al-Qabas Press Agency, 1980), 27.

29 Minoprio & Spencely and P.W. Macfarlane, “Plan for the Town of Kuwait: Report to His Highness Shaikh Abdullah Assalim Assubah, C.I.E. The Amir of Kuwait” (Kuwait, November 1951).

30 al-Ragam, “Towards a Critique of an Architectural Nahdha”; For more on the Development Board, see footnote 2.

31 Trench, Arab Gulf Cities: Kuwait City, 607.

32 Trench, 574–75, 607. The “Big Five” were the first five British contracting firms that were established in Kuwait, with local partners, and include Holland, Hannen, and Cubitts; D.C. and William Press; John Howard; Taylor Woodrow; and Richard Costan Limited.

33 Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed, 106–107.

34 Trench, Arab Gulf Cities: Kuwait City, 567.

35 Kuwait Development, 1954, Development projects and contracts in Kuwait appointment of British advisers and technicians, FO 371/109865, National Archives, Kew, London, accessed via Arabian Gulf Digital Archives (hereafter FO 371/109865, AGDA), https://www.agda.ae/en/catalogue/tna/fo/371/109865/n/181.

36 Alan Rush, ed., Records of Kuwait 1889–1961, vol. 3: Internal Affairs III (Slough: Archive Editions, 1997), 578–80; Trench, Arab Gulf Cities: Kuwait City, 585.

37 Kuwait, Notes on subjects to be discussed at the interdepartmental meeting on October 12, 1954, FO 371/109865, AGDA. Others have stated that Jabrī quit due to conflict with Fahd which resulted in his departure in 1955, see Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed, 106.

38 Government of Kuwait, Ref 11/1/6249, September 7, 1954, FO 371/109865, AGDA.

39 Rush, Records of Kuwait 1889–1961, 3:602.

40 Georges Britt, “From Yesterday to Tomorrow: Kuwait Launches a Vast Welfare Program by Wise Use of Wealth,” The Al-Kulliya Magazine (January 1952).

41 Sami Abdul Baki, personal interview, Beirut, Lebanon, May 2016.

42 Kamal A. Shair, Out of the Middle East: The Emergence of an Arab Global Business (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006); Aminah H. Alkanderi, “The Emergence of the Arab Engineer: Saba George Shiber, Arab Consulting Engineers (ACE) and Dar al-Handasah,” Histories of Postwar Architecture 8 (2021): 43–68, https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.2611-0075/12152.

43 Charles Haddad, personal interview, Old Saybrook, CT, April 17, 2017.

44 Despatch No. 43, 11025/2, September 16, 1954, FO 371/109865, AGDA. Fuād’s involvement in Kuwait continued to grow and he went on to hold the positions of Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kuwait State Factories, Technical Expert on the Development Board, and President of the General Tender Committee.

45 Rush, Records of Kuwait 1889–1961, vol. 3, 587.

46 See Fabbri, Saragoça, and Camacho, Modern Architecture Kuwait.

47 Roula El-Khouri, “The Work of Sami Abdul Baki in Beirut and Kuwait, 1947–1960,” in Pan-Arab Modernism 1968–2018, 259–72.

48 Manar Moursi, “Sharing and Building Modernities: Egyptian Architects in Kuwait 1950s–1990s,” in Essays, Arguments & Interviews on Modern Architecture Kuwait, 116–35.

49 Raymond Ghosn. “Beirut Architecture” in Beirut, Crossroads of Cultures, by Salwa C. Nassar Foundation for Lebanese Studies (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1970), quoted in El-Khouri, “The Work of Sami Abdul Baki,” 270.

50 On this see the role of Sayīd Karim in Kuwait where he served as a consultant in Moursi, “Sharing and Building Modernities.”

51 Michael Kubo highlights some of the problematic outcomes of this shift to purely Arab experts when he discusses the work of The Architects Collaborative (TAC) in the UAE, see Michael Kubo, “Building Identities: Transnational Exchange and the Authorship of Modern Gulf Heritage,” in Urban Modernity in the Contemporary Gulf: Obsolescence and Opportunities, ed. Roberto Fabbri and Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi (Abingdon: Routledge, 2022), 100–19.

52 Rush, Records of Kuwait 1889–1961, 3:244.

53 See Al-Rashoud, Talal, “Modern Education and Arab Nationalism in Kuwait, 1911–1961” (PhD diss., University of London, 2017); Juliette Honvault and Talal Al-Rashoud, “Modern Education in the Arabian Peninsula: Social Dynamics and Political Issues,” Arabian Humanities 12 (2019), https://doi.org/10.4000/cy.4884.

54 Asseel Al-Ragam, “Representation and Ideology in Postcolonial Urban Development: The Arabian Gulf,” Journal of Architecture 16, no. 4 (August 2011), 463.

55 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 152.

56 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 2.

57 Shiber’s master's theses at MIT, one in architecture and the other in planning respectively, focused on his hometown of Jerusalem where he aspired to design an engineering school. Saba George Shiber, “A School of Design and Engineering for the Proposed ‘Jerusalem University’” (master's thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1947); Saba George Shiber, “A University City for the Proposed Jerusalem University” (MA thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1948).

58 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 582 (emphasis in orig.). See also Al-Ragam, “Representation and Ideology in Postcolonial Urban Development”; Nadi Abusaada, “The Profession’s Vanguards: Arab Architects and Regional Architectural Exchange, 1900–1950,” Architectural Theory Review 27, no. 2 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1080/13264826.2023.2215535.

59 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 511 (emphasis in orig).

60 Saba George Shiber, “‘Elm Al-Tantheem Wa Al-Tatweer Al-Kuwayt [Planning and Development of Kuwait]” (Kuwait Municipality, 1963); Saba George Shiber, “Ibn Khaldun on City Planning,” Ekistics, Ecosystems: Man and Nature 29, no. 173 (April 1970): 289–91; Shiber’s body of work includes “Urban Formation and Reformation: A Descriptive and Critical Analysis” (PhD diss., Cornell University, 1956); “An Urbanistic Study of the Unique City-State of Kuwait—The Minicipal Council in Action,” Municipality Council in Action (Kuwait: Kuwait Municipal Council, 1961); “Faces of the City,” Al-Mowazaff, 7th ed., supplement (June 1962); “Saga of Kuwaiti Planning: A Critique,” Ekistics, Urbanization and Metropolitan Planning 21, no. 122 (January 1966): 51–58; Recent Arab Growth (Kuwait: Kuwait Government Printing Press, 1968); Kuwait Urbanization: Documentation, Analysis, Critique: Being an Urbanistic Case-Study of a Developing Country (Kuwait: Kuwait Municipality, 1964) and countless articles in magazines, journals, and newspapers.

61 Al-Ragam, “Representation and Ideology in Postcolonial Urban Development,” 459.

62 Ahmad Mustafa Abu-Hakima, The Modern History of Kuwait, 1750–1965 (London: Luzac & Co., 1983); See also Muhammad Fawzi Abdo, “The Urbanisation of Kuwait Since 1950: Planning, Progress and Issues” (PhD diss., University of Durham, 1988); Al-Ragam, “Representation and Ideology in Postcolonial Urban Development.”

63 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 16.

64 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 16.

65 Ibrāhim ’Abdulbaki, alturāth alḥaḍari fi almedina al’arabīya almu’aṣera [Urban Heritage in the Contemporary Arab City] (Kuwait: Kuwait Municipality, 1968).

66 Shiber, “Faces of the City,” 5–6.

67 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 288 (emphasis in orig.).

68 While the street, Fahad Al-Salem Street, was named after Fahd al-Sālim, the authors chose to spell the name of the street as it appears in offical documents and use the transliterated spelling for the person. Thus, Fahad Al-Salem will refer to the street and Fahd al-Sālim will refer to the person.

69 Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed, 109–10.

70 Ghanim al-Najjar, “Decision-Making Process In Kuwait: The Land Acquisition Policy As A Case Study” (PhD diss., University of Exeter, 1984).

71 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 158; Al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed, 110–12.

72 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 161.

73 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 168.

74 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 161.

75 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 329.

76 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 289.

77 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 320; 473 (emphasis in orig.).

78 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 453.

79 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 161.

80 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 166.

81 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 166.

82 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 454.

83 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 221–22.

84 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 220. See also Benyameen Ghareeb, “The Interplay between ‘Tradition,’ ‘Modernity,’ and Uneven Development: The Historical Development of Housing in Kuwait, 1950–2005” (PhD diss., University of Cincinnati, 2020).

85 See Michael Kubo, “Speculations: U.S. Architects and Modernisation in Kuwait,” in Essays, Arguments & Interviews on Modern Architecture Kuwait, 182–94.

86 See also the naming conventions adopted by Dar Al-Handasah in Shair, Out of the Middle East.

87 Ricardo Camacho, Dalal Musaed Alsayer, and Sara Saragoça Soares, “Collaborative Endeavors: Western and Local Firms,” in Pan-Arab Modernism 1968–2018, 173–80.

88 Ricardo Camacho, Dalal Musaed Alsayer, and Sara Saragoça Soares, “Individual Dreams: The Making of the Modern Villa,” in Pan-Arab Modernism 1968–2018, 144–46.

89 Rifat Chadirji, Concepts and Influences: Towards a Regionalized International Architecture, 1952–1978 (London: KPI, 1986), 7.

90 Suhair Al-Mosully, “Regional Arab Modernism,” in Pan-Arab Modernism 1968–2018, 321.

91 Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanization, 308; See also Huda Al-Bahar, “Contemporary Kuwaiti Houses,” ed. Hasan-Uddin Khan, Mimar 15 (1985), 63–72; Huda Al-Bahar, “The Evolution of Kuwait’s Domestic Architecture: An Empirical and Theoretical Study” (PhD diss., University College London, 1990).

92 Shiber, “Faces of the City”; Shiber, Recent Arab Growth.

93 Chadirji, Concepts and Influences, 7.

94 Neil Parkyn, “The Arab Consultants: Sabah Al-Rayes,” Middle East Construction, The Arab Consultants (February 1984): 27.

95 See Fabbri, Saragoça, and Camacho, Modern Architecture Kuwait: 1949–1989, 136–37.

96 Ghazi Sultan, “Planning: Kuwait,” Architects’ Journal 160, no. 50 (October 2, 1974): 792–93; Ghazi Sultan and Renata Holod, “Designing for New Needs in Kuwait,” in Toward an Architecture in the Spirit of Islam (Philadelphia, PA: Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 1978), 94; Ghazi Sultan, “Kuwaiti Architect Preserves The Past,” Kuwaiti Digest, (August 7, 1988): 29–32.

97 See Camacho, Alsayer, and Saragoça Soares, Pan-Arab Modernism 1968–2018.

98 Parkyn, “The Arab Consultants: Sabah Al-Rayes.”

99 al-Ragam, “Towards a Critique of an Architectural Nahdha”; Asseel Al-Ragam, “Critical Nostalgia: Kuwait Urban Modernity and Alison and Peter Smithson’s Kuwait Urban Study and Mat-Building,” Journal of Architecture 20, no. 1 (2015): 1–20.

100 Gardiner, Kuwait.

101 Gardiner, Kuwait, 56.

102 Gardiner, Kuwait, 73.

103 Gardiner, Kuwait, 68, 70, 79, 81, 96, 105, 152.

104 See Fabbri, Saragoça, and Camacho, Modern Architecture Kuwait: 1949–1989.

105 Chadirji, Concepts and Influences.

106 Al-Mosully, “Regional Arab Modernism.”

107 Ricardo Camacho, Dalal Musaed Alsayer, and Sara Saragoça Soares, “Interview with Ra’ad Al-Mumayiz,” in Pan-Arab Modernism 1968–2018, 106–7; This ordeal is also discussed in depth in Khaled al-Sultany, Architectural Intertextuality: Architecture as Acceptance of ''The Other" (Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture Publishers, 2012), 126–43; and Anas Alomaim, “Nation Building in Kuwait 1961–1991” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2016), 95–104; 297–300.

108 Ali Ghaloum Al-Rais, “Al-Kuwait Fi Alṣaḥfa Almṣriyya: Bidāyat al-Nahḍa [Kuwait in the Egyptian Press: The Beginning of al-Nahḍa]” (Kuwait: Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, 2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dalal Musaed Alsayer

Dalal Musaed Alsayer is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Kuwait University. Her research lies at the intersection of architecture, environment, and development in the context of Arabia during the twentieth century. She is the co-author of Pan-Arab Modernism 1968–2008: History of Architectural Practice in The Middle East (Actar, 2021) and the co-founding editor of Current: Collective for Architecture History and Environment (www.current-collective.org). She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Kuwait University; postgraduate degrees from Columbia and Harvard; and a MSc and PhD in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. She is an academic visitor at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford for the academic year 2022–23.

Ricardo Camacho

Ricardo Camacho received his architecture diploma from the University of Lisbon (FAUL) and completed the MArch II program at Harvard University GSD. He is the co-author of Habitar Portugal 2006/2009; Modern Architecture Kuwait (vols. 1 and 2, 2016; 2018), and Pan-Arab Modernism 1968–2018: History of Architectural Practice in The Middle East (Actar, 2021). He was previously a visiting professor at Northeastern University and research associate at Dar Al Athar Al Islamiyya, Kuwait. He was the deputy curator of Kuwait’s pavilion at Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2014. He is completing his PhD dissertation at Coimbra University: “Architecture Without the City: A Trans-local Practice in the Mediterranean, Antonio Teixeira Guerra (1956–1983).”