Kuwait’s National Assembly, 1982: Jørn Utzon’s walled city under a canopy facing the sea

In 1972 the Danish architect Jørn Utzon, best known for the Sydney Opera House, won an international competition to design Kuwait’s National Assembly. Construction started in 1975 and the building was completed in 1982 under the direction of his son, Jan; the Arab Architecture database runs the works to 1983.

A walled city in miniature

Utzon conceived the parliament as a small walled city arranged around a courtyard. He drew on Islamic architecture and on two local references: the tent and the dhow, the boat that became a national symbol.

The two-storey complex is square in plan and laid out on a 5 by 5 metre grid. Office modules measure 20 by 20 metres, each around an open central courtyard, and a 5-metre corridor separates one module from the next. A central walkway 12.5 metres wide crosses the building to the main entrance, with the public spaces and reception halls set at right angles to it on the bay side. The plan was drawn so new office modules could be added on three sides.

The canopy

Over the main entrance, a high canopy of 3,000 square metres shelters a public square, its roof sweeping up towards the sea. It rests on a double row of concrete columns carrying half-cylinder shells post-tensioned with steel cables. The flat roof over the rest of the building is pierced by skylights shaped as half barrel vaults, which light the corridors, library and cafeteria.

Apart from two of the halls, every building in the complex is made of prefabricated white concrete with a smooth finish.

After 1991

In 1991 Iraqi troops set the building on fire. It was later restored.

Photo: the canopy of the National Assembly seen from Arabian Gulf Street in 2022. Photograph by Zairon, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: the Arab Architecture database (arab-architecture.org), ArchNet, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture’s architecture archive (archnet.org), and Dezeen (dezeen.com, 9 April 2018), all read 24 October 2026.