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A Story of a homeland in autobiography
Engineer Sabah Al-Rayes - a Civil Engineer - graduated in the United States in 1965 - and he is one of the first generation of Kuwaiti engineers who lived through the urban renaissance of Kuwait. He worked in the Ministry of Works, then founded the Arab Office for Engineering Consultations in 1968, and contributed to the urban renaissance.

Through this book, the author recounts the history of engineering and his personal experience during more than half a century of his engineering career, where he witnessed many events and had the opportunity to meet key players who left their mark on architecture and engineering projects in Kuwait, and he was among the main players who contributed to the reconstruction and renaissance of Kuwait He witnessed many of its events, and was a key player in contributing to its renaissance by designing and supervising more than 1,000 projects in various fields, including buildings, roads, bridges, and infrastructure covering more than 40 countries.

The book answers many questions about the period that parents and grandparents lived in, the period of diving and travel, the period before oil and the oil boom, the years of valuation, independence and post-independence, and how that generation endured life from heat, cold and water scarcity. The chapters of the book included the history of Kuwait, its borders, its old houses, its inhabitants, its activities and its architecture, and shed light on the tremendous work that the Kuwaitis did in building the third wall in 1920, as it listed the human resources that carried out this great edifice, as well as the materials that were used in building the wall, and the number of animals. Which was used with the preparation of tables of quantities for the wall in a scientific research that no one preceded him. He touched on the distinctive buildings in Kuwait before many of them were removed. He also touched on the urban renaissance after the discovery of oil, which is the period in which Kuwait changed from a coastal village bordered by the desert on one side and the sea on the other, to a modern city.

The author covered the era of Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, the era that witnessed the establishment of the foundations of democracy. It also witnessed the first structural plan in 1952, which laid the road map for the future Kuwait. The author touched on the housing and housing policy, how the demographics changed, and the development of architecture after the development of the first structural plan and the subsequent structural plans and revisions, and the impact of the establishment of Kuwaiti engineering offices on architecture, and how the distinguished engineering offices industry began.

The author tells his personal experience dealing with public figures. He talks about his journey with engineering during half a century in the field of engineering, professional activity, and the development of infrastructure in Kuwait from a primitive and non-existent infrastructure to projects of roads, bridges, sewers, power stations, ports and the airport. In addition to education and health. The book also covered during the occupation period and its impact, and the destruction and reconstruction after liberation, and the book concludes with travel stories.