The Original Gulf Bank Head Office – 1963

A few weeks ago I spotted a post by Gulf Bank on LinkedIn celebrating their 64 year anniversary. They had shared a few old photos but they were low-res and not really that great, so I decided I’d try and find some better ones, and I did.

According to Gulf Bank’s ‘About Us‘ page, the bank was founded in 1960. The page also mentions that in 1961, they hired architect Jean-Robert Delb to design their head office. While the building he designed is still their head office today, they only moved into it in September 1976, according to an old newspaper ad. Before that, they operated from a different head office.

Their original head office was designed in 1963 by Tony Irving and Gordon Jones of the Design Construction Group (DCG). The building was two floors and was composed of three separate buildings wrapped into one. The municipality for some reason had insisted that the owners of the units adjoining the bank adopt the identical architectural treatment, which is how we ended up with that iconic looking block.

Sadly, the original Gulf Bank head office building was recently demolished. It was the same building that had housed Richard’s Coffee and NIU, right across the street from Souk Mubarakia.

The photos above are from a 1972 issue of Aramco World and were taken by Burnett H. Moody. The black and white photo below was taken by Andy Warhol when he visited Kuwait.

The advert below was taken from Kuwait Times, September 1976 issue.