Although referred to in the singular, Kuwait Tower is a group of three towers, built as part of a city-wide water management system. Designed by the Swedish engineers Sune Lindström and Malene Björn, the towers were built, in concrete, by Energoprojekt of Belgrade. The other five groups of water towers are mushroom-shaped, but the Emir of Kuwait wanted something more spectacular to overlook the Persian Gulf.
Construction commenced in 1971, and the towers were formally opened in March 1979. The main tower is 613 feet high, and features two spheres. The lower stores a million gallons of water, and also houses a restaurant at its top, 270 feet up. The upper sphere is home to a rotating observation deck and café, 404 feet above the ground.
The second tower is 482 feet high, and stores another million gallons of water. The third, 371 feet high, carries a number of lights to illuminate the two larger towers and their spheres, covered with 55,000 steel discs in eight different colours. The towers were damaged during Gulf War I, 1990-91, and have been closed since 2012 for restoration.
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