Kuwait National Assembly
Arabian Gulf Street
Kuwait City
Jørn Utzon 1972-1982
Although completed only in the early 1980s, the Kuwait National Assembly project started with a competition back in 1969 – when Utzon's Sydney Opera House was nearing completion (though no longer with Utzon's involvement).
The rising front of the building faces out across the Arabian Gulf, providing a strong skyline in a site that Utzon had observed as “haze and white light and an untidy town behind.”
The fabric-like suspended curves of the concrete roof at the Kuwait National Assembly provide some of the same dramatic use of the material's strength as at Sydney – also as in Utzon's intervening Bagsværd Church in Denmark, as well as Saarinen's earlier airport terminal roof at Dulles.
The National Assembly complex includes a covered square, the parliamentary chamber, a large conference hall and mosque.
Jørn Utzon received the Pritzker Prize in 2003.
Simon Glynn 2007
How to visit
The National Assembly is next to the National Museum on Arabian Gulf Street in central Kuwait. It is not open to the public.
