Buildings Like Garments: Al Seef Palace

Trying to see everything and meeting/interviewing everyone on your list is practically impossible during Milan Design Week and it's something that, at the end of the day, will eventually get you shattered.

Yet at times seeing as many things and meeting as many people as possible (especially from different fields from yours) can help you opening up and even discovering unusual connections.

Yesterday I had a bit of a frantic routine that involved stopping at Federico Sangalli's atelier and popping around Dolce & Gabbana's HQ in Via Broggi 23 for an architecture event that focused on the work of the Piuarch architectural firm (more about it in the next few days – but fashion and architecture fans can visit the building in Via Broggi since it's open to the public until tomorrow from 3 pm to 10 pm).

At Sangalli's atelier I was given an unexpected lesson on draping that will stay with me for a long time, while the last event I went to took me back to the world of architecture and made me think about new comparisons with fashion.

It was only natural then that when I went to bed at the end of the day I started thinking if there was a building that could somehow be compared to a garment from a strictly sartorial point of view.

Despite I had initially started focusing on the buildings in Milan, in the end I realised that the building that could provide and interesting comparison wasn't in Italy, but in Kuwait and it's the Seef Palace extension (the official palace of the State of Kuwait, with the reigning monarch's headquarters, the Crown Prince, the Prime Minister and government offices) by Finnish architects Raili and Reima Pietilä.

Al Seef Palace was built in 1896 and extended during the years (the old palace was severely damaged during the Gulf War).

The comparison with tailoring mainly comes from the fact that the structure planned by Raili and Reima Pietilä was characterised by what could be called as the “outside to inside vision”.

Indeed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building presented an outside wall cut-away to reveal an unexpected scale of openings to the wall that separated the outdoor and indoor environment.

The transition zone was a bit like a colourful “lining” and seemed to have the same purpose of the lining in a jacket or a coat. This feature was used by the architects to create a visual access from the street to what went on inside the building.

The second point that connects this building to fashion is the variation on a theme.

If you think about it, fashion collections are based on one theme or inspiration, suitably varied and applied to different designs (in a previous post we have also seen how variations on themes can be successfully applied to knitwear).

In the case of this building, the variations are represented by the wall openings that came in a wide range of shapes and sizes, the colours of the tiles on the walls, in the courtyard and on the fountains (the “lining”) were instead arranged thematically, while architectural features such as arches, Islamic arabesques and wooden oriels were used as tributes to Kuwait’s rich heritage.

Internal corridors were colour-coded and the details of the junctions of materials – aluminium, plaster, clay, rocks, limestone, wood and metals – could also be considered as variations on themes.

When the architects created this building they also thought about the role of the sun: hitting the tiles the sun produced different effects on their surfaces, turning into a "decorative weaver". Can you think about other buildings that could be compared to garments?

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