Kuwaiti Architecture: Where Have All Our Thinkers Gone?
Kuwait has no identity, Kuwait’s culture is confused, Kuwait is falling into the abyss, bla bla bla, the same crap regurgitated over and over by people who think they are the first to make some kind of ground-breaking, earth-shattering discovery that will forever change the face of history for generations to come. Sorry, Christopher Columbus, you missed Pocahontas sitting over there.
So, supposedly, we’ve lost our “traditional culture.” So, supposedly, there is no unifying architectural identity. So, err, quite definitely, we don’t live in ovens, pardon me, I mean mud brick houses anymore. So… so what?
What is an architectural identity supposed to look like, then? What the hell does culture even mean in this country? Is it camels, and tents, and fishing? Because it sure doesn’t look like it. From where I’m sitting, it looks more like Designer labels, Blackberrys, and German cars.
The times they are a changin’.
I get it that as architects we’re supposed to be “free-thinkers;” all of us rolling stones, with our extreme ideas, and our unorthodox methods. You crazy architects, you. But when you try to criticize something as arbitrary as what is essentially an entire culture, you’re going to end up tripping over yourself trying not to sound like a contradicting jackass. Because, and listen carefully: a culture does not spring out of the ground. It is the result of an incredible number of factors. So many, in fact, that you’re going to need more than two hands to count them on; that is to say, it’s a lot.
For example, in Kuwait: other than the million other reasons, a sizeable part of what shapes Kuwaiti society is status. Religion. Family name. Occupation. And ever since Kuwaitis started swimming in oil, and showering in petrol: wealth. And what better way to confirm our status than to flaunt said wealth. Short of running around waving our money in the air, the most obvious way to do that is wear it on our clothes, cars, and homes. You know; “bling bling, dolla dolla bill ya’ll.” Sooo… Can we assume that I’ve just successfully summed up and explained the entire Kuwaiti way of life in a single paragraph? Well, no, that would be too presumptuous. Weren’t you paying attention?
Okay, you’re getting annoyed now. So what’s my point? Well, other than trying to fit “dolla dolla bill ya’ll” into a (somewhat) serious article (and at least 3 references to Bob Dylan if you’ve been reading carefully), my point is… well it’s not to criticize our culture or architecture, if that’s what you think. In that case, you’ve missed the point. I’m 22 years old and my biggest achievement to date is cutting a piece of wood in half with an electric saw while not maiming myself; who am I to pass my judgement on an entire generation of culture? Societies change. They grow, they evolve, or they completely revolutionize themselves.
So next time you’re assessing something, be it architecture, culture, traditions, or the latest Steven Segal movie, don’t ask yourself whether it’s “wrong” or “right.” Those two terms are so relative they barely exist in a discipline which is extremely relative in itself. Ask yourself: Why? Save your righteous, opinionated beliefs for when you’re old, senile, and too stubborn to acknowledge any opinion other than yours. Until that happens, use every opportunity you have to ask why. And once you’ve found out why, how “wrong” or “right” it is won’t matter anymore.
Filed under: kuwait | 2 Comments
Tags: architecture, culture, identity, kuwait, society, tradition
Srs bizness mode oN
Kuwait is a slave to globalization. No, not every country is.
Many countries, after accumulating massive wealth in a short period of time, completely changed their country for the better.
What’s interesting is that despite Kuwait’s wealth, we are still considered as being a third world country which is beyond sad.
Kuwait and the neighboring regions accumulated massive fortunes, thanks to oil, in a very short period of time and thus this led to them not knowing how to handle their sudden wealth.
Putting aside the fact that the British gently guided our hands, teaching us how to do everything and giving us the tools to obtain and maintain the oil supplies and we’ve relied so much on outside guidance that we quite simply cannot survive without the aid of an expatriate’s guiding hand.
Other countries with strong work ethics and national pride are completely self reliant, and Japan comes to mind. It’s a country that has no natural resources and yet is the second largest economy in the world and they’ve maintained their culture and architecture.
Kuwait is a joke in upon itself. We have no pride and no ingenuity as a people, it was lost the moment oil surfaced and I’ve always felt it was more of a curse than a blessing.
We produce absolutely zero products that is valuable to the outside world and have contributed nothing to the world. If Kuwait ceased to exist, the world would not be affected whatsoever, that’s the mark of whether a country is good or bad, if it’s passing actually means something.
In regards to our architecture, mud-brick houses were not the only styles employed in the region in the pre-oil era, Islamic styled architecture comes to mind. I see no reason as to why they could not be implemented, they are quite efficient and more so than the current styles we see in the region/Kuwait especially in how they aid in keeping its occupants cool.
The only reason it was not implemented is because we did not know how to do so for we are spoon fed everything by outsiders who take pleasure in sucking the only thing that is valuable in Kuwait and will without a doubt desert the country once it runs out or an alternative is found.
Srs bizness mode oFF
I agree with a lot of what you say. It’s because we’ve accumulated so much wealth so fast that it’s turned into a “huh? what do I do with all this?!” situation. And that was, I think, the turning point… but what actually happened aftwerwards is shaped by a lot of different factors.
Like when our great grandparents suddenly had all this green fall right into their lap I’m sure they had no idea what to do with it. They were all boat builders, sheep herders and fisherman, and I can imagine they were completely ignorant about money and economy. It wouldn’t have occured to them to invest in making some kind of long-term money generator that could help their country become self-reliant in the future. The knowledge just wasn’t there to begin with.
And this kind of ignorance is just being passed down generation to generation… Or this is partly what I think, anyway. I don’t think it’s a lack of pride, or a lack of ingenuity, as much as it is a lack of education.
And we really shouldn’t compare ourselves to other countries because this is where problems start to arise… Japan does what it does because it works for them. But Kuwait can’t do what Japan does, or what anyone else does because Kuwait is Kuwait. Our problem is that people either: a) are trying to copy other countries , or b) are trying to revive dead traditions in some kind of national pride that just doesn’t suit who we are today (concrete houses with fake chandal? really?).
Kuwait is a specific country, with its own specific problems, that need to be studied and solved to suit its own particular needs.
And other than in museums, why should we implement out-dated styles when there are clearly better solutions available to us now? Even though we don’t exactly use much of it. We could afford the best technology available, we could even pay to create better technologies that would last us years. We could have gigantic skyscrapers that descend underground when huge Japanese robots come to attack us (well, we could). But it’s… argh, I don’t know why we don’t, ignorance? Stupidness? Laziness? Corner-cutting? Corruption? Maybe I’m the one missing something? The only real architecture in Kuwait is all designed by NON-Kuwaitis, and they know better how to design for our country than we do. Which says what about us?
On another note, I get that a lot of people aren’t crazy about this haphazard conglomeration of architectural styles, but, somehow, it’s become… our identity. In a weird twisted way. It’s like a teenage kid going through his goth phase, rock phase, emo phase. I mean, eventually we gotta grow out of it, but at the moment we’re still growing I suppose.