Every Building in Baghdad The Rifat Chadirji Archives at the Arab Image Foundation Mar 31–May 14, 2016
The exhibition examines the work of Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji through the collection of his original photographs and building documents held at the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut. With the work of his architectural office, Iraq Consult, and in his other roles, Chadirji became a pivotal cultural figure in Baghdad during the period of its postwar modernization from the 1950s through the 1970s. As an architect, as a planning consultant, and as director of buildings for several government agencies, Chadirji was central to the organization and consolidation of the image of the postwar city and helped foster the emergence of the factories, colleges, monopoly headquarters, communication structures, and the other new building types that appear in Baghdad following Iraq’s 1958 revolution. Despite the long historical continuity his regionally inflected modernism evoked, Chadirji was all too aware of the transformative effects of Iraq’s growing oil economy. His work as a photographer was informed by his sense of Iraq’s political and cultural precariousness, while it foresaw greater disruption ahead. Over a span of more than twenty years, Chadirji recorded the street-life, social practices and spaces that he believed were threatened by development and the forces driving Iraq’s postwar evolution. Over the same period he meticulously photographed his own architectural work in an attempt to produce documents that could survive the damage, alteration and potential destruction of his buildings. The threat that lurks within the Chadirji archives reverberates with the current instability in Iraq and Syria and the continuing specter of building destruction and cultural violence. The texture of precarity within Chadirji’s photographs also underscores the institutional project of the Arab Image Foundation and its attempt to assemble, secure and preserve the photographic history of the Arab World. In this sense, Chadirji’s photographs and building documents exhibit at least three identities: they are an informational system describing every building within his architectural oeuvre; they are a device to preserve the image of Iraq’s experience of modernization; and they are the charged signifiers of collateral damage and the historical and cultural vulnerability that marks the archives of the Arab Image Foundation.
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Architectural Documentation Chadirji’s comprehensive architectural folio of photography sheets and paste-ups, records and analyzes the development of his building practice. Coded and organized by construction year, building type and archive reference number, the documents sampled here show the range of projects that engaged Chadirji in Bagdhad after his return from studies in England in 1952, to his departure from Iraq in the early 1980s. As a theorist and author of more than ten books on architecture and on the challenges faced by architects in Iraq and in the Middle East, Chadirji has been critical of both a naïve engagement with local building craft and with the importation of a bland international mode of construction. He characterizes the dominant approach to building in Iraq from the 1950s to the early 1980s as indifferent to the particular social and technical demands of the region and as a “labyrinth of social prejudices, unrealistic fantasies, imported technologies and defective, half digested or misinterpreted imported symbols and fashions.” The documents on display illustrate that by the middle of the 1960s Chadirji’s practice had departed from a design approach he thought too closely associated with European functionalism. As Director of Buildings for Baghdad’s Waqaf Organization in the late 1950s Chadirji was responsible for the care and preservation of ancient mosques and other structures, a role that impacted his relationship to Iraq’s historical legacy. Through an analytical terminology that described architecture’s “repose and recipiency,” and “cybernetic interaction,” Chadirji attempted to reconcile new, locally specific building technologies with historical forms and architectural antecedents drawn from Mesopotamia and from Iraq’s long cultural history. With commissions for a variety of new institutional and governmental buildings, and through his reflection on historical forms and contemporary technologies, Chadirji became a critical participant in cultural debates that emerged in postwar Iraq, that developed during the 1958 revolution, and that shifted through early Ba’thist party policy. At issue was the role of architecture and other
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artistic practices in Iraq, their articulation of regional histories and identities, and the distance they might take from more general, Pan-Arabist policies and cultural strategies. Within the gallery original photograph paste-ups from Chadirji's architectural documentation are displayed across from his ethnographic and urban photography. Panels with drawings extracted from his building documentation sets are displayed in the gallery lobby.
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A01↑ IRQ/331/026: E. Abboud Building, Baghdad, 1955.
A14↓ IRQ/812/130: Albert Hanna Residence, Baghdad, 1965.
A01↓ IRQ/818/030: Shanshal Housing, Baghdad, 1958.
A15↑ IRQ/812/131 [G]: N. Chadirji Residence, Baghdad, 1962.
A02↑ IRQ/812/050: Mme. Abboud Residence, Baghdad, 1959.
A15↓ IRQ/812/131: Mahmoud Othman Residence, Baghdad, 1965.
A02↓ IRQ/818/088: Rashad City Project, Rashad, 1959.
A16,A17 IRQ/338/151: Administration Offices, National Insurance Company, Mosul, 1969.
A03↑ IRQ/812/090: Muhsin Shanshal Residence, Baghdad, 1960.
A18 IRQ/314/153: Administration Offices, Federation of Industries, Baghdad, 1966.
A03↓ IRQ/818/011: Hamed Building, Baghdad, 1954.
A19 IRQ/314/154: Offices and stores, Tobacco Monopoly Administration, Baghdad, 1966.
A04,A05 IRQ/720/103: Veterinary College, Baghdad University, Baghdad, 1965.
A20↑ IRQ/273/161: Iraq Flour Mill Company, Baghdad, 1968.
A06,A07,A08 IRQ/731/104: Administration offices, Iraq Scientific Academy, Baghdad, 1965.
A20↓ IRQ/338/170: Al-Mansour Branch office, Rafidain Bank, Baghdad, 1968.
A09 IRQ/858/109: Cement Factory Housing, Baghdad, 1967.
A21,A22 IRQ/314/179: Administration and Training Institute, Ministry of Social Affairs, Baghdad, 1969.
A10 IRQ/812/110: Farouk Al Alousi Residence, Baghdad, 1961.
A23↑ IRQ/732/180: Chemical Laboratories, Ministry of Agriculture, Baghdad, 1967.
A11↑ IRQ/314/107: Administration offices, Tobacco Monopoly, Baghdad, 1961.
A23↓ IRQ/984/182: Monument for Worker's Training Campus in Waziriyah (designed by Maath Alousi), Baghdad, 1969.
A11↓ IRQ/812/116: A. H. Azzawi Residence, Baghdad, 1962.
A24,A25 IRQ/315/186: Offices, Central Post, Telegraph and Telephone Administration, Baghdad, 1970-1975.
A12, A13, A14↑ IRQ/332/127: Iraq Consult Bureau (IQC), Baghdad, 1965.
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A26↑ IRQ/277/187: Kufa Cement Building, Kufa, 1970-71. A26↓ IRQ/984/188: Monument in Housing Scheme in Fudailiyah, Ministry of Social Affairs, Baghdad, 1969. A27 IRQ/331/195: Commercial building, Directorate-General of the Waqaf Administration in Alwiyah, Baghdad, 1969. A28↑ IRQ/812/218: Mustapha Shanshal Residence, Baghdad, 1963. A28↓, A29↑ IRQ/812/221: Ayad Hamood Residence, Baghdad, 1970. A29↓ IRQ/812/263: Bahir Faiq Residence, Baghdad, 1973. A30↑ IRQ/314/223: Labour Trade Union Building (designed with Maath Alousi), Baghdad, 1971-1973. A30↓ IRQ/313/302: Administration complex, Council of Ministers, Government of Iraq, Baghdad, 1975.
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D01 E. Abboud Building, Baghdad, 1955. Photographic prints from drawings. Front Elevation and Third Floor plan. D02 Administration offices, Iraq Scientific Academy, Baghdad, 1965. Photographic prints from drawings. South East and North East Elevations. D03 Office building for the DirectorateGeneral of the Waqaf Administration, Baghdad, 1965. Competition design. Photographic prints from drawings. Elevations. D04 Administration Offices, Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, Baghdad, 1965. Competition design. Photographic prints from drawings. Nidhal Street and Back Street Elevations. D05 Commercial Building, Iraqi Aviation Association, Baghdad, 1966. Photographic prints from drawings. Bur Saeed Street Elevation and Rear. Elevation. D06 Medical Auxiliary Training Institute, Baghdad, 1966. Competition design. Photographic prints from drawings. Elevations. D07 Offices, Central Post, Telegraph and Telephone Administration, Baghdad, 1971. Photographic print from drawing. Elevation.
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Photography Chadirji shared his attention to Iraq’s long history with his interest in its more immediate past and to the altered physical and social landscape of Iraq’s postwar modernity. The decades of Chadirji’s architectural practice were marked by vastly increased oil revenues, political regime changes, and other instabilities. Through regular photographic expeditions into the streets of Baghdad, to its outskirts, and to Northern Iraq, Chardiji compiled an expansive collection of photographs of the sites of Iraq’s transformation, and of the customs and conditions that he believed were most imperiled. During this period the local status of photography was subject to its own alteration. Although amateur photography was far from ubiquitous in Iraq’s postwar, it was perceived with relative indifference. During later years, Chadirji has explained, the figure of the man on the street with a camera, documenting social life, was viewed with suspicion and hostility and was assumed to be an agent of state surveillance. One result is that the informality and speed Chadirji’s photographs became exaggerated. They are not wellcomposed tableaux, so much as they are covert attempts to capture images of vulnerable locations and populations. Many of the photographs from the late 1970s and 1980s document the demolition along Rasheed and Haifa streets, the main axes of Baghdad’s urban development. This zone suffered a form of urban renewal during Saddam Hussein’s early years of power as Iraq prepared for the 1982 summit of non-aligned nations. Although the summit was eventually canceled due to Iraq’s war with Iran, Baghdad’s “cement mixer ambience,” as described by the Chicago Tribune, persisted through the early 1980s, and was documented by Chadirji until his departure from Iraq. Chadirji's archives also contain a selection of images shot by other photographers. The categories "Churches, Cementeries, Mosques, Buildings," "Marshes, Portraits, Social Life, Bridges, Domes," and "North of Iraq," were taken by photographers associated with the Iraq Petroleum Company. Their presence in the archive attests to Chadirji's study of the ethnographic photography that appeared through the publications of oil corporations and other state agencies during the 1950s and 1960s. 10
P05↓ 9-78-85-30, 9-78-85-35: Shoppers in an open market, Baghdad, 1978.
296 Yazidi P01↑ 7-77-49-16: Yazidi temple and cemetery, 1977.
670 Production
7-77-55-32, 7-77-55-17: Yazidi temple, Sinjar, Mosul, 1977.
P06↑ 2-74-42-12, 2-78-43-30: Souq el Safafeer, cooper market, Baghdad, 1978.
P01↓ 7-77-65-24: Yazidi festivities near Mosul, 1977.
P06↓ 9-78-88-22A, 9-78-88-5A: Production of bricks, factories, 1978.
7-77-58-02, 7-77-55-02: Yazidi Funeral, Sinjar, Mosul, 1977.
9-78-88-34A: Production of pottery, factories, 1978.
330 Shopping P02↑ 1-54-5-8: Not captioned
741 Signs and Advertisements P07↑ 3-76-11-14, 3-76-12-3: Not captioned
1-54-5-12: Selling boiled turnips on the streets of Baghdad, 1954.
P07↓ 5-76-14-36: Political advertisement on the Ministry of Health, 1976.
P02↓ 1-54-5-17, 1-54-5-26, 1-54-5-31: Not captioned
3-76-14-12: Not captioned
P03↑ 3-75-82-25, 3-75-82-37: Exhibition of cars, outskirts of Baghdad, 1975.
P08↑ 5-76-11-23A: Political advertisement in the street, 1976.
P03↓ 3-75-84-58, 3-75-81-13, 3-75-82-35: Not captioned
5-76-12-4: Political advertisement on an official building, 1976.
P04↑ 4-75-187-20, 4-75-187-22: Selling cooked turnips on the streets of Baghdad, 1975.
5-76-12-14: Political advertisement in the street, 1976. P08↓ 5-76-12-21: Political advertisement in the street, 1976.
4-75-187-25: Selling chickpeas on the streets of Baghdad, 1975. P04↓ 5-76-51-1, 5-76-51-9, 5-76-51-13A: Shopping watermelon, 1976.
5-76-12-34: Political advertisement on a school, 1976. P09↑ 9-78-77-5: The signs of small hotels in Baghdad, 1978.
P05↑ 9-78-85-25, 9-78-85-26A: Shopping motorcycles, 1978.
10-78-143-11: Decoration for Tammuz month (July) celebrating the revolution and the birth of the Baath party, 1978.
9-78-85-29: Shoppers in an open market, Baghdad, 1978.
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P13↓ 14-81-191-5: Political poster in Baghdad, 1981.
9-78-77-8: The signs of a doctor's clinic in Baghdad, 1978. P09↓ 10-78-143-8, 10-78-143-9: Decoration for Tammuz month (July) celebrating the revolution and the birth of the Baath party, 1978.
14-81-205-23: Political advertisement, posters for the occasion of Tammuz anniversary, 1981. P14↑ 14-81-205-23: Political advertisement, posters for the occasion of Tammuz anniversary, 1981.
P10↑ 10-78-144-18: Political advertisement, Tammuz anniversary, 1978.
14-81-205-22: Political advertisement, signs for Tammuz anniversary, 1981.
10-78-144-34: Decoration for Tammuz month (July) celebrating the revolution and the birth of the Baath party, 1978.
P14↓ 15-82-44-9: Political advertisement, 1982.
P10↓ 10-78-154-30, 10-78-144-5: Political advertisement, Tammuz anniversary, 1978.
15-82-48-22: Graffiti on wall which reads 'pissing for donkeys only,' 1982.
10-78-161-27: Political advertisement at the Institute of Applied Arts for Tammuz celebrations, 1978.
15-82-64-28: Poster of Saddam and his younger daughter, Hala, 1982.
P11↑ 10-78-161-4, 10-78-163-26: Decoration for Tammuz month (July) celebrating the revolution and the birth of the Baath party, 1978.
760 Architecture P15↑ 2-74-30-14: Traditional Residential Houses in Baghdad, 1974.
P11↓ 10-78-163-35: Political advertisement, Tammuz celebration, 1978.
2-74-34-26: Traditional Governmental Houses in Baghdad, 1974.
10-78-164-13: Decoration for Tammuz month (July) celebrating the revolution and the birth of the Baath party, 1978.
2-74-34-33: Traditional Houses in Ashar, 1974. P15↓ 3-75-25-20: Demolition, 1975.
P12↑ 12-81-13-35, 12-81-13-37, 12-81-14-12: Political advertisements, 1981.
3-75-25-23: Kitsch, 1975.
P12↓ 12-81-47-8, 12-81-47-11: Political advertisement, governmental signs, 1981.
3-75-25-29: Traditional, 1975. P16↑ 4-75-192-3A, 4-75-193-6: Traditional mixed architecture of the Rasheed Street, Baghdad, 1975.
12-81-69-28: Political advertisement, Saddam's posters, 1981. P13↑ 13-81-149-10, 13-81-149-20, 13-81-149-37: Doctors’ titlesigns, Baghdad, 1981.
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P16↓ 7-77-75-3, 7-77-75-8, 7-77-75-10: Traditional Residential Houses in Adhamiya, Baghdad, 1977.
14-81-166-7: Modern residential architecture, 1981. 14-81-200-2: Mixed urban architecture, Rasheed street, Baghdad, 1981.
P17↑ 9-78-45-15: Mixed architecture of the Rasheed Street, Baghdad, 1978.
P21↑ 15-82-39-24A: Mixed architecture, commercial building, 1982.
9-78-77-30: Rasheed Street, Baghdad, 1978.
15-82-45-29: Residential architecture, Namali House by Mohamed Makiya, 1982.
9-78-77-31: Mixed Traditional Architecture, Rasheed Street, Baghdad, 1978.
P21↓ 15-82-45-28: Modern residential architecture, Rawi house, 1982.
P17↓ 9-78-46-7, 9-78-46-28: Traditional mixed architecture, Baghdad, 1978.
16-82-96-11: Residential architecture, 1982.
9-78-65-1: Mixed architecture, Baghdad, 1978.
763 Architecture
P18↑ 13-81-116-1, 13-81-117-4, 13-81-117-6: Traditional residential architecture, 1981.
P22↑ 12-81-58-3, 12-81-58-22: Demolishing Haifa Street, Baghdad, 1981. P22↓ 12-81-58-29, 12-81-60-5: Demolishing Haifa Street, Baghdad, 1981.
P18↓ 13-81-119-35, 13-81-119-36, 13-81-119-33: Baghdad Wall, 1981.
P23↑ 12-81-60-30, 12-81-60-34: Demolishing Haifa Street, Baghdad, 1981.
P19↑ 12-81-38-31, 14-81-166-20: Traditional residential architecture, 1981.
12-81-63-5: Not captioned
P19↓ 14-81-166-25: Residential architecture, new and old, 1981.
P23↓ 12-81-63-10, 12-81-63-26: Demolishing Haifa Street, Baghdad, 1981.
14-81-174-2: Traditional residential architecture, 1981.
12-81-66-33: Mixed architecture, demolition, 1981.
P20↑ 14-81-166-30: Not captioned
P24↑ 12-81-69-7: Residential architecture, demolition, 1981.
13-81-150-3A: Governmental architecture, Museum, 1981.
12-81-70-3, 12-81-71-1: Mixed architecture, demolition, 1981.
P20↓ 12-81-55-36: Traditional Houses, Baghdad, 1981.
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P24↓ 13-81-115-22, 13-81-115-25: Demolition of Haifa Street, 1981.
Marshes, Portraits, Social Life, Bridges, Domes P29↑ ALS.6: Fair Street Scene, Mosul, May 1952. Taken by: A.J.P.
P25↑ 13-81-122-7, 13-81-118-33A: Mixed architecture, demolition, 1981.
C-KGH.6: Looking down on old Turkish Bridge, Kirkuk Old Town, May 1953. Taken by: J.V.Y.
P25↓ 13-81-121-31, 13-81-122-13: Mixed architecture, demolition, 1981.
P29↓ C-ZIE.56: Samawa old bridge of boats, Baghdad, March 1958. Taken by: B.P.U.
P26↑ 14-81-195-33: Residential architecture: demolition, 1981.
ZGS.249: The “Iron” Bridge, road and rail. Baghdad from the River II, September 1957. Taken by: B.P.U.
14-81-204-29: Mixed architecture: demolition, 1981. P26↓ 13-81-122-9, 13-81-122-11, 13-81-138-13A: Mixed architecture, demolition, 1981.
North of Iraq P30↑ C-XGS.101: The town of Rowanduz, North of Iraq, 1956. Taken by: B.P.U.
P27↑ 15-82-39-1, 15-82-12-37: Modern building in Saddam city, Baghdad, 1982.
XIM.5: The small town of Aqra. Population about 7,000. October 1953. Taken by: J.L.S.
P27↓ 15-82-20-20A: Residential architecture, demolition, Baghdad, 1982.
P30↓ AGS-28: Footbridge at Erbil, Ain Zalah, 1954. Taken by: Fox
15-82-22-22A: Mixed architecture, demolition, Haifa Street, 1982.
C-AGH-5: Erbil Liwa 600’—1000’. The ancient town of Erbil, reputed to be one of the ancient towns in the world. Top right the road to Mosul. Taken by: B.P.U.
Churches, Cemeteries, Mosques, Buildings P28↑ ZGS.233: New Offices at Southgate, Baghdad, October 1957. Taken by: B.P.U.
ZGS.268: The Arab Bank Building, Baghdad, October 1957. Taken by: B.P.U. P28↓ ZGS.272: Modern Houses in Diwaniyah, Baghdad, January 1958. Taken by: B.P.U.
C-ZGH.65: Aerial 400’, Al-Kadhimiya Mosque, Baghdad, November 1955. Taken by: B.P.U.
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Curators: Florencia Alvarez, Adam Bandler, Mark Wasiuta Exhibition Design: Adam Bandler Director of Exhibitions: Mark Wasiuta Exhibitions Coordinator: Adam Bandler Assistant Exhibitions Coordinator: Florencia Alvarez M.Arch Exhibitions Assistants: Becca Book, Grete Grubelich CCCP Exhibitions Assistant: Tania Tovar Torres M.Arch Exhibitions Crew: Valentina Flora Dean Cortez, Jiangyu Chen, Andrea Ayleen Hajj, Eugene Sen Chun Ong, Edward Joseph Andriani Putri, Miranda Shugars, Ilijana White, Haochang Yu, Evelyn Zhang
Angelucci, Cameron Chiney, Charles Palka, Angelina Soldan, Zachary Ross
CCCP Exhibitions Crew: Maite Borjabad, Pedro Ceñal Murga, Rosana Elkhatib, Ruishi Ge, Joachim Hackl, Robin Hartanto, Chi-Chia Hou, Sara McGillivray, Iara Pimenta Graphic Design: MTWTF Produced by GSAPP Exhibitions
Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery M–F 12–6pm, Sat 3–6pm arthurrossarchitecturegallery.org