Kuwait City: An Appendix to 'Oil and Ink'

Kuwait City An Appendix to ‘Oil and Ink’

Hamed S. Bukhamseen

(Top) Historic map of Kuwait during the early 1900s.

(Yellow) Present day location of Kuwait City.

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Kuwait City, KUWAIT. Located on the shores of the Arabian Gulf in the Middle East, a city was founded in late 1700s with its people completely reliant on the sea for their livelihood. Kuwait City (or Al-Kuwait as it was simply known) was composed of a dense urban fabric of mud-brick homes which follow the typology of the courtyard houses seen across North Africa and the Middle East. However, this urban fabric would drastically change within an incredibly short period of time with the discovery a single resource: Oil. With this newly found wealth, the “town” of Kuwait was propelled into an era of fast-paced modernization. An era of demolition and construction ensued and an era of complete socio/political/economic/infrastructural overhaul had commenced. The Kuwaiti society had been thrust into an age of unprecedented development that saw the eviction of the citizens from what is now considered the” former old city” into a suburban environment planned out by Western and foreign architects. The houses that lay within the old city walls had been raised in favor of “international” office and apartment buildings.

Few of the buildings of the former old city remain in what has now developed into the CBD (Commercial Business District) of the country.

Given that most of the past architecture had been completely raised, the short story looks towards a specific portion of the city that is representative of its entire history: past, present, and future. The site contains a series of projects that are in construction, one of which seeks to create a reinterpretation of the past with the project title of “The Heritage Village: Revival of Past Memories”.

The site is the stage set for the creation of a fiction amongst architectural characters and symbols of past and present as they interact amongst one another in order to communicate their situation. A fiction and a critique unfold throughout their interactions, complaints, soliloquies and monologues.

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(Top) Dense city fabric of courtyard homes.

(Right) Aerial View of Kuwait City c. 1947

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Figure 1. Diagrammatic representation of city fabric

Kuwait City was a dense composite of buildings forming an urban fabric of narrow streets and alleyways. Buildings were built abutting to each other forming blocks that would fit together as though urban puzzle pieces. These blocks would be pierced by the multitude of courtyards typical of the Middle Eastern housing typology.

Each household would contain at least two courtyards dedicated for gatherings of both genders. Gatherings would form an integeral part of daily life within the city. These households would share a connected roofscape in order to create a private network of pathways only accesible to the women of the city. Women would be able to access the courtyard of a neighbor directly in order to bypass any interaction with the man of household.

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Series 1.

A series of photgraphs that depict the pre-oil era of Kuwait City with its narrow roads and alleyways and predominantly single story homes, with the minaret of the mosque as the defining feature of the skyline.

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Bait Al-Bader (Al-Bader House)

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15m

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1 The Male Court (Space of Male Gathering) 2 The Business Court 3 The Kitchen Court 4 The Female Court

Within the shade of the female courtyard of Bait Al-Bader

The Courtyard House.

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Gatherings would form an integral part of daily life as to maintain closely knit relationships amongst neighbours which would occur in the central courtyards of the home.

Bait Al-Bader represents a much more lavish form of the typical Kuwaiti Courtyard house. The standard two courtyrad typology is expanded to encompass four courtyards that still seperate the functions amongst the two genders. The business court is in conjunction with the male court and the kitchen court is in conjunction with the female court.

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Bait Al-Ghanim (Al-Ghanim House)

15m

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1 The Male Court (Space of Male Gathering) 2 The Kitchen Court 3 The Female Court 4 The Animal Court

In both the Bait Al-Ghanim, and the Bait Al-Bader, they maintain that most of the household’s activity occur on a single level. The Ground level becomes the only level of life and activity. It is also interesting to note that most of the rooms within the household are open to the female and kitchen courts of the household, whilst the male courtyard is merely a reception to non-relative male guests.

Within the shade of the female courtyard of Bait Al-Ghanim

The Kuwaiti Courtyard House.

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Figure 1. Diagrammatic representation of the tradtional female courtyard.

The Female Courtyard One of the primary factors that distinguish the female courtyard from that of its male counterpart could be seen in its original architectural context. The gathering of women would occur within an interior courtyard that is surrounded by rooms of habitation: an externa layer of shielding from the outside realm of the city. There would also be a consideration for shading as such gatherings would occur in the morning and afternoon with the complete absence of men from the household.

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Figure 2. Digrammatic representation of the male courtyard.

The Male Courtyard As for the male courtyard space a practice of the gathering of male friends would occur completely seperate from that of what would be considered the female domestic realm. This would lead to the conception of the exterior male court which lacks the rooms of habitation associated with the actual household. This court would lack the shading of the female counterpart as the gathering of men would usually take place later on in the day (at dusk). The interior thus is presided over by the matriarch and the exterior the realm of the male.

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(Left) Image taken within the realm of the tradtional female courtyard.

(Right) c. 1950 Kuwait City. A bridge between two homes connects the upper levels of the homes to allow women to move about the city 13 undetected.

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1 The extent of the original city settlement of Kuwait c. 1951 bound by the now former city walls

The Oil Boom With the discovery of oil, an era of complete socio/political/infrastrcutural overhaul had ensued. The city dwellers had been slowly evicted from their households onto newly developed foreign-planned suburbs that would lie outside the city walls.

Within the span of a decade the city would lose its former character, grain and architecture.

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Sequence 1.

A series of Images taken from Rodeny Giesler’s documentry film “Close-Up on Kuwait” depicts a nation buzzing in with activity and construction during the 1960s. What accompanies this active construction effort however was a mentality to forget the past in preference for the contemperary. The old city was demolished and consistently replaced with “international style” office and apartment buildings.

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Sequence 2.

The active demoltion of the old city and the fast transiton to international styled office and apartment buildings with the gradual movement of the city residents to newly layed out suburan areas outside the now former city walls seen here in the distance.

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1951.

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1960

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1967

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2 Sequence 1.

A series of aerial photographs depicting the A series of aerial phtographs taken of Kuwait City depicting its develpment during the oil boom rapid period. transformation that Kuwait City underwent as a result of the oil boom.

3 Location of Kuwait City, KUWAIT

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An overlay of the 1952 Masterplan for the development of new districts outside the former city walls by Minoprio and Spencely.

Kuwait City as it is today with the further development of new districts. The development follows the path of the former city walls as seen in the development of the concentric highway system known as the “Ring Roads�

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The City Today The demolition mentality following the immediate post-oil era ensues to this day. The former old city has developed into the commercial business district of the country. A city of skyscrapers. The image depicts a specific irony. The old city now houses the newest building developments of the country. These new structures would overlook the suburban environment that had been layed out in order to provide the grounds for their conception. The oldest grounds of the current city house some of the newest developments of an entire nation.

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(This page) Kuwait City - 1951 (Right) 2004 - Outlined portion indicates the extent of demoltion that city underwent.

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2004

2005

2008

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2009

2010

2012

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2004

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2012

Tracking the Development of the Site This area would soon become the site for another wave of a mass construction effort that would see the development of multiple projects. These would include the new Central Bank Building Headquarters of the country and a project titled: The Heritage Village.

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1 The Central Bank Building HQ

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2 The Heritage Village Porposal 3 The Ibn Al-Qatami Mosque

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1. The Central Bank Building HQ (This Page) The construction of the new Central Bank Building HQ (Right) A rendering of the Central Bank Building once it has been completed. Note the existence of the Ibn Al Qatami Mosque to the right of the building.

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2. The Heritage Village Project (This Page)

(Right Bottom)

Water color rendering of the proposed Heritage Village Project.

The current construction progress of the project which had excavated the entire area and presereved portions of what remains of teh old city by shoring it up.

(Right Top) A rendering of the proposed project with the tag-line “Heritage Village : Revival of Past Memories”.

With most of the former old city demolished (with the exception of Mosques due to their religous status), a project had been proposed and started with the intention of rebuilding a portion of the old city. The intention behind it was for current generations to experience what it must have been like to live in Kuwait 50 to 60 years ago, hence the project line: “The Heritage Village : Revival of Past Memories”.

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9:00 am

10:00 am

11:00 am

12:00 pm

(Top Sequence) A a series of renderings that demostrate the path of the shadows of the buildings within the site of the Heritage Village and Ibn Al-Qatami Mosque area. The shadow tracing is calculated for December 21st, the winter solstice, in order to determine the longest shadow calculations.

(Bottom Right) Rendering taken at 2pm on Dec 21 demonstrating the total ecilipse of the Ibn Al-Qatami Mosque from neighboring Skyscraper (the Central Bank).

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1:00 pm

2:00 pm

3:00 pm

4:00 pm

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3. The Ibn Al-Qatami Mosque (This Page) A shored up Mosque preserved in order to become part of the proposed Heritage Village Project, (Right) View taken from the within the minaret of traditional mosque in Kuwait City.

A megaphone sounds the prayer calls routinely through a recording.

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(Top)

(Right Page)

A map indicating the direction of Kuwait City in relation to Mecca: a direction where all mosques and Muslim worshippers face during prayers.

A sequence demonstrating the sounding of the megaphone recording at 11:47am and 2:36pm on the winter solstice prior to and right after the total eclipse of the mosque from the shadow of the bank building scyscraper.

(Bottom) Rendering of the shadow of the bank building in relation to the Ibn Al Qatami Mosque. The Bank lies in the directinal path of the Mosque facing Mecca,

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Daily Prayers:

Dawn

Midday

Afternoon

Dusk

Nightfall

Prayer Timings in Kuwait City , KUWAIT and the times that the prayer calls are sounded.

12:00 pm

2:00 pm

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Hamed S. Bukhamseen RISD BFA| BArch 2013 info@hamedbukhamseen.com