Between East and West: A Gulf Architecture

Between East and West: A Gulf Architecture
Bukhamseen Hamed, Ali Ismail Karimi

English edition, 2019, 240 pages

Between East and West: A Gulf looks towards the contested hydrography of the Arabian/Persian Gulf and proposes a new masterplan for the region. In an area of physical, religious, and political division, the publication tells the story of the Gulf’s islands and the possibilities they hold for a joint territorial project. The book was an accompaniment to the third Kuwaiti participation at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2016 with a pavilion that shares the same title. Hundreds of islands dot the waters between the Arabian and Persian shores. An afterthought in the political maneuverings of their respective coasts, these islands tell an alternative narrative to the one which drives conceptions of the region. They represent a possibility greater than spaces of political contestation and hesitant demarcation. These islands are the sites of identity in formation, places of experimentation and architectural invention. Their historical roles were as varied as places of leisure, spirituality, planning, war, exile, and health. The island is an entity both isolated but also crucially connected through the waters of the Gulf, and thus not an exception to the national but the rule which defines it. Commissioned by the National Council for Culture, Art and Letters (NCCAL), the Kuwait Pavilion at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia 2016 looks beyond the shores of the country and argues in favor of a masterplan for a united Gulf. By presenting the untold history of the region and proposing an alternate future, the pavilion casts the hydrography as a singular entity of neither East nor West, but as an untapped archipelago which defined the region and offers the greatest possibility for its reconciliation.

About the AuthorHamed Bukhamseen is an architect and educator based in Kuwait City, Kuwait. He is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and Harvard University - Graduate School of Design earning degrees in architecture, the fine arts and urban design. He has practiced locally and internationally within the US, Germany and Japan where he was involved in various curatorial and design projects. Aimed primarily at the merger of interests in art and architecture across the urban realm, his work has been published in numerous media outlets and has been exhibited in Cambridge, Rome, Venice, and Dublin. In 2016, alongside Ali Karimi , he was curator of Kuwait's participation at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, with the project titled "Between East & West: A Gulf". He is currently a faculty member at the Kuwait University - College of Architecture where he teaches design studios and seminars.


Ali Ismail Karimi is a Bahraini architect and educator interested in social housing, public space, and infrastructural re-imaginings of the GCC countries. Ali received his Master in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (M.Arch I '16). He has worked in Brussels with OFFICE KGDVS, in New York with SO-IL, and in Santiago-Chile with Elemental. In 2016 he was the curator of the Kuwait Pavilion titled "Between East and West: A Gulf" at the Venice Biennale with Hamed Bukhamseen. Karimi has conducted research on government-built housing in the GCC with the Affordable Housing Institute in Boston as a Joint Center for Housing Studies Fellow; and in Havana with a grant from the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Ali practices in Manama and teaches architecture design studio at the University of Bahrain. His work and writings have been published in various academic journals including San Rocco, CLOG, and he most recently edited the third issue of the Harvard GSD student publication, Very Vary Veri (VVV).

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