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Bayt Al-Bader
Bayt Al-Bader date back to the
mid-nineteenth century, and remains today as a vestige
of desert-style mud-brick housing, with private
courtyards and walled peripheries constructed to dispel
street noise and dust. The Bayt Al-Bader, a mud
walled complex of rooms, recesses, and passageways, affords a rare glimpse in to what was considered de
rigueur architecture by the well-to-do in traditional
Kuwait. Situated between the National Museum and the Sadu House, this is an old house built between 1838 and
1848. It was owned and occupied in the past by Al-Bader
family and is currently used for exhibitions of
local handicrafts. The Bayt Al-Bader is a center for
displaying handicraft art and for selling traditional
Arabian goods and commodities. It possesses and find
example of the famous front doors of old Kuwait.
Particularly impressive are the arched entryways and
main doors. The National Museum currently occupies
a number of small rooms in Bayt Al-Bader as
administrative offices
City
Wall Gates
The walls surrounding old Kuwait City
was originally built by Sheikh Salim Al-Mubarak in 1922
to keep the marauding desert tribes out of the town.
Although largely demolished during urban renewal in the
1950s, its five gates are still standing at various key
points in the city as monuments to the past. All of them
are on, or adjacent to, the vacant strip running along
the First Ring Road.
The five gates are Maqsab Gate
(by the sea, down from the Sheraton Hotel,), Jahra
Gate (inside the roundabout at the bottom of Fahd
Al-Salem Street), Shamiya Gate (at the start of Riyadh
Street,) Beraisi Gate (at the end of Mubarak Al-Kabeer
Street), and Bneid Al-Qar Gate (in Bneid Al-Qar), in the
green belt between Soor (wall) Street and the First Ring
Road. The Gates were destroyed bye the Iraqi invaders
but have since been rebuilt. Each has been recently
renovated to preserve its historical authenticity and
flavor.
Dhow Harbour
Gulf-going vessels called dhows and ocean-going ones
called booms lay scattered up and down the coastline of
Kuwait. In the city, across from the National Assembly
Building, are old dhows once launched for pearl diving
and fishing.
In the Harbor the largest surviving
Kuwaiti sailing ship from pre-oil era as well as five
smaller dhows. The largest ship, Fateh-El-Khair, was a
cargo ship while the five smaller dhows were pearl
diving, cargo, and fishing vessels. There are several
different examples of small dhows. The batteel, a
replica, was built by Hasan Abdul Basoul for the Kuwait
Foundation for the Advancement of Science in 1998. This
type of ship was used in deep sea trading during the
1830s.
The sanbouk, also a replica, was a type of dhow
used exclusively in the pearl diving industry. This ship
was built in 1998, for the Kuwait Foundation for the
Advancement of Science, by Ali Al Sabagha. The smallest
of the replica dhows is of the tashala type. This was a
cargo transport vessel which was used to carry goods
from the ship to shore. Materials which would be carried
on this dhow would include building materials such as
wood and coral rock. This type of vessel only was used
in Kuwait and was built in 1994 by Hasan Abdul-Rasoul,
the builder of the largest dhow in the harbor,
Fateh-El-Khair
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