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Yasmeen Abdal
Architectural Narratives → The Architectural Printscape: In Print
Pratt Institute, MFA Communication Design
The Architectural Printscape is the visual language of a cityscape. It is the way we read our cities through surface, material, form, and structure. Spaces are mediums that communicate societal values, preserve memory, and articulate heritage. This study positions the architectural printscape as an essential element for understanding space as narrative communication. Weaving contemporary expressions of cultural identity into space, creates a spatial palimpsest embedded with cultural information. I analyze Kuwait’s architectural printscape through three primary lenses: material (building blocks), print (murals), and form (structure). Examined within spatial and temporal contexts, these elements develop a symbolic, nonlinear palimpsestic narrative. By reinterpreting architecture as a communicative medium—something to be read—I position it as a layered palimpsest embedding the urban environment with social, cultural, and political meaning. Architecture becomes an instrument for expressing historical and future identities. Through the lens of non-places, supermodernity, and identity loss under the homogenizing forces of globalization, I show how the architectural printscape reclaims meaning and resists cultural erasure, furthering the argument of architecture as both a container and driver of cultural narratives. Architecture thus becomes a living documentation—a printscape of our personal, collective, and historical narratives through which we exist.
Personal Responsibilities
Editors:
Jo Livingstone, Alex Liebergesell, Zeina Abi Assy
Design & Layout:
Yasmeen Abdal
Typefaces:
Helvetica Neue Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann
FK Grotesk Neue by Florian Karsten
Neue Helvetica Arabic by Nadine Chahine
Paper:
Mohawk Superfine Eggshell White, 80lb text.
Printing & Binding:
GSB Digital in Long Island City, NY.
Print Run:
Eight copies printed and bound in New York, May 2025.