Planning Your Visit to the Amricani Cultural Centre and The Al-Sabah Collection

This season, the Amricani Cultural Centre is practically overflowing with opportunities for discovery. Six exhibitions/multi-media presentations highlight aspects of history from the Bronze Age to 20th century Kuwait and art from the full geography of the Islamic world  Spain to China. All the exhibitions at the Amricani are open to the public Monday – Thursday and Saturday from 9 AM to 7 PM and Fridays from 2 – 7 PM. The museum is open all day and there is no admission charge.  

Located in the Rawaq Gallery in the former women’s hospital, MAK (Modern Architecture Kuwait 1949 – 1989) is a survey of architecture in Kuwait during the development boom of the last half of the 1900s. Three architects (Robert Fabbri, Sara Saragoca and Ricardo Camacho) undertook extensive research and selected approximately 150 projects for their “particular design methodologies, typologies, and different adaptations to Kuwait’s environment. In the process they identified different linkage within the projects; not based on chronology but on the ‘value of the built object in the city’.

In the main building are two favourites: Story of Amricani and Home of Kind Words: Calligraphy in The al-Sabah Collection. Story of Amricani is a multi-media presentation that shares the history of the buildings and of the missionaries who built and served in the hospitals. While unsuccessful in conversions; they had a lasting impact on Kuwait. Home of Kind Words, upstairs, is an incredible demonstration of the ability of children to produce when given the chance. As the concept developers, curators, designers, and copywriters, the children enrolled in DAI’s Children’s Art Workshop are responsible for this exhibition from start to finish. Celebrating calligraphy, especially the calligraphy of blessings, the children focused on objects that would be found in a home and then created the story of Sarah and Abbas, the home owners.