Kuwait City’s new Al Hamra Firdous Tower, by the U.S. firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, cuts an asymmetrical profile against the desert sky. The 74-story building’s lyrical form evokes a veil, a cloak, an unfurling scroll—but it has a practical purpose, too. The glass façade maximizes views in three directions, while the partially enclosed southern wall, made of rhythmically fenestrated limestone, provides insulation from the harsh Kuwaiti sun. SOM has already built the world’s tallest skyscraper—the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Now it has given the Middle East its loveliest. somom
