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Yasmeen Abdal
Architectural Narratives → Transmitters of Kuwait
Pratt Institute
Edition of 10
12-page Index
Dimensions: 5.8 x 49.2”
Power stations are scattered all over Kuwait. Standardized in form and rich in cultural information, they’re usually built with 3–6 pointed arches, a nod to traditional Islamic architecture. Here, the arches no longer serve a structural role, but an ornamental one, revealing a shift from functional to symbolic significance.
Each station is covered in murals that weave together fragments of Kuwait’s cultural memory: pre-oil life, weaving patterns, pearls, the desert, palm trees, and calligraphic motifs. These visuals blend past and future, the humble town and the thriving metropolis into one layered narrative.
In Arabic, the electrical box is called محول كهرباء (muhawwil kahrabaa) — literally, power transmitter. Ironically, while these stations transmit electricity, the murals transform them into transmitters of culture and history.
This work is rooted in the idea of the urban palimpsest, reading the city as a layered text, where history, culture, and economics leave visible traces on space. In Kuwait, such transformations turn “non-places” bridges, skyscrapers, even power stations into meaningful sites that reclaim and represent memory, continuity and change.
The project also takes the form of a booklet inspired by Edward Ruscha’s Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966) a continuous photographic record that, here, catalogs Kuwait’s power stations in sequence, transforming overlooked modern infrastructure into a bearer of cultural & historical information.
Through my taxonomy Transmitters of Kuwait, I’ve been documenting and archiving these sites revealing how urban objects transform into architectural archeology.
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