This is not a place you walk into. The Mirror House in Qadisiya is a museum inside a house that is still lived in, and it works by appointment only. These are its terms as it publishes them itself.
The price
Four dinars for an adult and two for a child. A private tour is ten dinars a person. Slippers are half a dinar to borrow or one dinar to keep. Cash is preferred, and there is no group discount.
The hours
Open six days a week, closed on Fridays. A morning tour starts at 10 or 11, an afternoon tour at 3 or 4, and the first booking of the day decides which of the two start times runs. The tour is about two hours. In Ramadan it is 11 and 3 only.
Booking
By appointment only, at least twenty-four hours ahead. A reservation form goes in twelve to twenty-four hours before the visit, and the booking is confirmed on WhatsApp at 5074 7677 — messages only, no calls.
The minimum is two adults, or one person on the private tour. The maximum is seven or eight adults for a group of friends, and ten to twelve for a family with children. The two versions of the site disagree on that ceiling and on the minimum age, so it is worth asking when you book.
It is a house, not a gallery
The address is Qadisiya, block 9, street 94, house 17. Shoes come off at the second entrance, and personal slippers, socks and bare feet are not allowed. No prams. Wheelchair wheels are wiped at the counter. There is a step-free ramp, a lift to the first floor, and seating on both floors.
How it came to be
The project began in 1966 when Lidia Qattan covered a bookshelf in fragments of a mirror her three-year-old daughter had broken. She started on the walls and doors in 1972. The first phase was finished in 1979. Then termites were found in 1981 and forced a rebuild. The second phase began in 1985, the rear extension was built between 2004 and 2005, and the work was completed in 2006.
What you see
The ground floor holds the mirror halls: Planet Earth, the Zodiac, the Universe, Knowledge, My World, the Corridor of the Nations, the Shark Basin, Sea World and the Stairs to Inspiration. The first floor holds the Khalifa and Lidia Qattan galleries.
Khalifa Qattan died in 2003, and the museum’s own FAQ calls him the pioneer of Kuwaiti fine art and the first Kuwaiti artist to hold a solo exhibition, in 1953.
Two notes
The ten-dinar private tour includes two hours to yourself, a new pair of slippers to keep, a snack and a drink, a souvenir bag, and return transport when it is available.
And the museum says it receives no government or private funding and lives on tickets, purchases and donations. Its pages carry no update date, so the prices and hours are what the operator states today rather than something we can date.
Photo: the wall and gate of the Mirror House. CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons, cropped.
Source: the Mirror House’s two sites, its visit page and its FAQ, on 6 September 2026.
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