A discourse on the state of Egyptian architecture was never more present than between1939 and 1959 in the pages of the first Arabic language architectural journal Al-Emara, established by Egyptian modernist architect Sayed Karim. If the magazine was, as Karim described it, “the forum for the exchange of honest opinion and ideas,” then the newly formed independent states of the Arab world were the terrain in which these ideas were tested, circulated and shared. Fifty years after the launch of Al-Emara, in the 1989 preface to the book Twentieth Century Architecture in Egypt, Karim laments the loss of Egypt’s position at the center of architectural and urban development in the region. Reflecting on those fifty years however, one cannot deny the formative role Egypt played in developing the urban fabric of the cities of the Arab World. Urban history is often told through the lens of what remains of its built landscape, but the drawing board and the building sites were not the only spaces in which Egyptian architects effectively disseminated their ideas. Magazines, conferences, education and institution building were other avenues through which they etched their presence onto the built environment of the region. Taking Kuwait as a case in point, this article will shed a light on the often overlooked contribution of Egyptian architects in the city from the 1950s to the 1990s. This paper will link Egypt and Kuwait in the last fifty years of the 20th Century via two key Egyptian figures of modernist architecture and urbanism, Sayed Karim and Mahmoud Riad, and the more widely recognized Hassan Fathy, as well as lesser-known practitioners such as Said Abdel Moneim, credited with the design of public and private buildings in Kuwait. Post-Nasser and Sadat, and the decline of a Pan-Arab spirit in the region, Egypt’s political and cultural sphere of influence in the region gradually began to shrink. Meanwhile, the Gulf countries, including Kuwait, became richer, and started to spread their own investments and culture beyond their borders. Today, the Gulf is shaping Cairo via its economic influence, its developers and ideas of suburban modernity. Back in Cairo, the returnees from this period of exchange as well as workers with remittances brought new influences to the city. This paper will attempt to trace these shifts of exchange and influence through a reading of the built environment.