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Udo Kultermann
From Contemporary Architecture in the Arab States
© 1999 McGraw-Hill Publishers
McGraw-Hill makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy of any information contained in the McGraw-Hill Material, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. In no event shall McGraw-Hill have any liability to any party for special, incidental, tort, or consequential damages arising out of or in connection with the McGraw-Hill material, even if McGraw-Hill has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
INTRODUCTION
The regaining of tradition is as crucial in Iraq as it is in Egypt; both are important centers in the Arab world and cradles of Western civilization. The contemporary situation of architecture in Iraq is as significant as the architecture in Egypt, and many parts of the Arab world have been influenced by leading Iraqi architects such as Mohamed Saleh Makiya, Rifat Chadirji, Basil al-Bayati, and Maath al-Alousi. Iraq has been unique in its revitalization of one of the oldest traditions in architecture into a contemporary form. In a book about his father's work, Kanan Makiya quotes T. S. Eliot on the meaning of tradition: "Tradition cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence."1
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The history of Iraqi civilization can be traced back to about 7000 B.C. to the legendary Garden of Eden at Al-Qurna. The Sumerians were probably the first to establish an agricultural economy and an urban life and a written record. The complex layers represent millennia of a great civilization, manifested in the ziggurats of Ur and Uruk, notably the Nanna ziggurat in Ur, c. 2100-2050. André Parrot called the ziggurat the Cathedral of Antiquity and the first manifestation of a people "looking beyond this world."2 The Greek historian Herodotus visited Mesopotamia in 458 B.C. and described the ziggurat of Babylon:
In the center of the holy precinct in Babylon is a tower, and on the tower is another tower, and then another, in total, seven towers one above the other. You can step up on all towers on a staircase which is around them. On the highest tower is the temple proper. In it is a bed. On the bed sleeps a woman from Babylon which the God selected from all the women of the country. The priests tell, the God comes personally to the temple and sleeps with the woman on the bed. But I cannot believe this.3
Herodotus did not understand the symbolic meaning of the Babylonian religion and the first architectural manifestation of the interrelations between heaven and earth, which nevertheless, became the primary mood for the region and for other religions, such as Judaism and Christianity.
The Babylonian and Assyrian empires were the highest manifestations of culture of their times. King Hammurabi (1792-1750 B.C.) established his capital city of Babylon at the end of the second millennium B.C.; under his rule the first civil law in history was created as he decreed "to cause justice to prevail in the country, to destroy the wicked and the evil, that the strong may not oppress the weak"4 The Assyrian Empire, based in the city of Niniveh, lasted from about 1400-600 B.C. and extended in the south as far as Egypt. Among the still existing ruins are those in Niniveh, Nimrud, and Ashur, located about 400 miles north of Baghdad. After the destruction of Niniveh in 612 B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt the city of Babylon, including the Hanging Gardens of Queen Semiramis, which were considered by the Greeks to be one of the seven wonders of the world.
The rich history of Iraq is further defined by invasions by the Persians, Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, and the Parthians. The Sassanids defended the territory against the Romans and the Byzantines, but in 637 the Islamic invasion created a new phase.5
With the spread of Islam the old Iraqi traditions were transformed, and the subsequent Abbasid-Seljuk-Safadid rulers made Baghdad one of the most important cultural centers of the world. The era of Caliph Haroun al-Rashid and the epic of the "Thousand and One Nights" is the symbol of this culture, which was at that time unrivaled in the Western world. Besides Baghdad there were the eighth-century palace of Ukhaidir and the palace and mosque at Samarra, center of the new capital city of Samarra (founded in 836 by Caliph El-Mutasim). The Great Mosque built by El-Mutwakil between 847 and 852 has been seen as one of the major examples of early Muslim architecture.6 In the thirteenth century Iraq was invaded by the Mongols and lost its former importance. When it eventually became part of the Ottoman Empire it completely lost any significant role in spite of the local autonomy it was able to keep.
The modern history of Iraq is dominated by war, colonial invasions, and political instability. In 1921 Iraq was declared a kingdom, but on July 14, 1958, the monarchy was overthrown by Abdul Karim Kassem, and the Baath Party came into power. Since 1979, Saddam Hussein has been head of state. The war with Iran (1980-1988) was a disastrous event that hurt the population and cultural activities of the country intensely, as did the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War of 1991, which has since brought economic and social hardship to the population. Both wars also damaged and destroyed many of Iraq's structures, both ancient and modern.
PROFILE: MOHAMED SALEH MAKIYA
For its architectural quality and its revival of tradition, the work of Mohamed Saleh Makiya stands as a prototype for Iraq and for new developments in the third world in general. Like Hassan Fathy in Egypt, Makiya analyzed Iraq's past in his architectural work, in his role as an influential teacher, and in his scholarly publications. His ideas can be found in his writings: The Arab Village, sponsored by UNESCO and published in Cairo in 1951, and The Architecture of Baghdad, published in 1969 with the assistance of the Gulbenkian Foundation. In both books the fundamental insights that he established led to a reappraisal of the Iraqi architectural past.
In contrast to the concepts of the international style, the style of modern Western architecture, Makiya proposed a new beginning for architecture in harmony with the spiritual and cultural identity of the Iraqi people and their unique tradition. The elements of the past are not seen as mere forms or ornaments but rather as elements and functions of space and the local climate conditions:
The aspirational qualities of symbolism are a crucial requirement to modern planning in any culture. The present architectural intellect puts its vigor and energy into an egoistic display in the search to be seen as original, escaping from symbolism either out of a lack of appreciation of its significance or a miscomprehension of its meaning. The architectural forms whether past or present should be sympathetically and deeply rooted to meaningful and significant responses. Symbolism extends the concept of functionalism to the higher level of the intellectual aptitude demanded by the designer and asserted by its social meaning. New, creative vision, unless it possesses this intrinsic quality, would become a sign of this egoistic self-assertion. This applies to the lasting status and survival of the arch, the dome, and the minaret within the physical quality of the new built-up environment. They are so much part of the natural setting that they stand beyond the label of "traditional" or "contemporary."7
Educated in Liverpool England, Makiya received a degree in architecture in 1941 and a degree in civic design in 1942. He completed his studies at Kings College, Cambridge, where he received his Ph.D. in 1946, and returned to Baghdad in the same year to open an architectural office. His firm continued to have worldwide impact even after he himself left Iraq to work from his London office, which was established in 1975. It is significant that Makiya does not separate theory, professional activities, and practice, but combines all these areas, with the result that each is enhanced and enriched by the others. His architectural commissions include religious buildings, office and administration buildings, educational and residential buildings, and urban design in a universal complexity that has few rivals in his country or elsewhere. His work includes newly emerging building types, such as buildings for the handicapped, which challenge the established forms of contemporary architecture.
After he started his own firm in 1946, he devoted himself to designing a significant number of religious buildings, beginning with the Khulafa Mosque in Baghdad. 1960-1965. The major task of this commission was to integrate the new mosque into the context of the old mosque and to achieve a harmony between old and new. His design followed traditional patterns and included the old minaret from the ninth century as part of the overall plan. The completed complex, nearly 1000 years apart in time, created an ensemble that changed the site. Ornament and spatial organization are in harmony with the character and tradition of the mosque. Included in the new mosque is Kufic calligraphy, which would never have been possible in a rigid modernist solution.
The Kuwait State Mosque (1977-1981) is a step further in the consolidation of a building type from the past for contemporary use. At a cost of 13 million Kuwaiti dinars, 130 times the cost of the Khulafa Mosque, in Baghdad, this very large building accommodates 7000 people. Makiya designed several additional mosques for Islamabad (1970), Bahrein (1973), and Muscat (1997), but his most important work in this category is the 1983 design for the Baghdad State Mosque. The design was part of a competition that included invited architects such as Robert Venturi, Ricardo Bofill, Rasem Badran, and Maath al-Alousi. This very ambitious project was to accommodate 30,000 worshipers and included a school a library, guest houses and residences. Makiya's proposal created a grandiose complex in a rectangular space with a monumental minaret and a dome that was supposed to be the dominant element of the neighborhood. It was to be located in the central area of the round city of Al-Mansour. It was, for Makiya, a synthesis of earlier elements now orchestrated into a monumental ensemble.
As his son Kanan Makiya interpreted the design, its "monumentality is deeply rooted in the architecture, not attached to it from the outside as a consequence of the brief, the type of client or through simple-minded bigness." He legitimately compares the unbuilt design for the Baghdad State Mosque with the great examples of eady mosques of the region, specifically the mosques at Samarra and Ibn Tulun in Cairo, the culmination of the old tradition. The fact that a contemporary project can stand such a comparison is unique as it demonstrates the very different and yet unrecognized status of a non-Western architecture of high quality.
As was stated before, the ability of an architect is manifested not by a few singular buildings but in the many problems that await contemporary solutions. Makiya is in line with a few modern architects who are engaged in a wide variety of difficult tasks. Besides his religious buildings, Makiya has designed a number of educational structures. In 1965 he worked out a plan for Baghdad University; in 1966 he designed the Theology College in Baghdad, in close proximity to the existing buildings of Baghdad University; and in the 1967 plan for Al-Kufa University he envisioned a new campus for 20,000 students in a shape that harmonizes with the old Iraqi tradition. In 1981 Makiya designed the complex of Rashid University in Iraq in collaboration with the German firm of Heinle, Wischer & Partners. And in a recent project for Al-Ain University of the United Arab Emirates, Makiya further developed his scheme, replicating and adapting the old plan of the city of Arbil for contemporary academic purposes.
Since 1966, Makiya's activities have expanded beyond the borders of his country, where he executed a large number of commercial and residential buildings that include bank buildings in Basra and Mosul (both 1966) and Kerbala and Al-Kufa (both in 1968). In open reference to old Iraqi historic building elements these banks apply motifs that relate to tradition, such as window setbacks in the Rafidain branch in Al-Kufa and the blue tile exterior walls on the Rafidain branch in Kerbala. The Al-Kufa building was heavily damaged in the Gulf War, and the one in Kerbala was completely demolished. In expanding his work to Bahrein and Oman, Makiya was able to realize a large number of buildings; among them are the Sheikh Mubarek Building in Bahrein (1973), the Entrance Arch and the Center for the Handicapped of Isa Town in Bahrein (1973), the International Hilton Hotel, a garage and houses in Dubai (1974), the Al-Andalous housing complex in Doha, Qatar (1983), and the Police Officers Club interior design in Abu Dhabi (1982-1986).
Among his most important projects in recent years are the headquarters of the League of Arab States in Tunis (1983), the headquarters for the Regional Arab Organizations in Kuwait (1982-1987), and the ceremonial grounds in Tikrit (1984), all three significant for the emerging symbolism of Arab architecture in different manifestations. The headquarters building in Kuwait searched for forms in which the unity of Arab states could be visualized. In the headquarters of the Arab League this language is further developed and successfully articulated. Originally planned for Baghdad and later for Tunis, it calls for a contemporary structure in which both official political management and the imagery of Arab identity was expressed. In the ceremonial parade grounds in Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, a political involvement of a different kind was expected. For this questionable task Makiya proposed a monumental open area in which the architectural details recall comparable traditional structures. Even though Kanan Makiya was intensely at odds with the political regime of Saddam Hussein, he could not hdp being impressed by the "breathtakingly beautiful and virtually timeless architecture, an architecture that is rooted in Mesopotamian traditions going back at least 4000 years and yet has somehow become modern, even post-modern in feeling."8
PROFILE: RIFAT CHADIRJI
It speaks for the rich cultural situation of Iraqi architecture that it produced two great creators, Mohamed Saleh Makiya and Rifat Chadirji. While very different, both are dedicated to preserving and continuing a great tradition in spite of being forced by political pressures to leave their country. The research and work of Rifat Chadirji, who was born in Baghdad in 1926, almost 10 years after Makiya, is dedicated to solving contemporary problems in harmony with the challenges of a great past. Like Makiya, Chadirji also suggested that the local tradition had to be made into a determining element of "continuous architecture." Arthur Rabeneck wrote that Chadirji devoted his "professional and artistic life to a central issue of our times--how to reconcile the cultural and social tradition of his country with the realities of rapid technological change and a growing internationalism in the arts."9
Chadirji received his education in England where he studied at the Hammersmith School of Arts and Crafts. While in England he came under the influence of architects such as Auguste Perret, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe and the town planner Arthur Korn. After his return to Baghdad in 1952, he founded the firm Iraq Consult. In his capacity as adviser to the mayor of Baghdad, he was instrumental in commissioning leading international architects to build large-scale complexes. These included Frank Lloyd Wright (Opera House), Le Corbusier (Sports Hall), Walter Gropius (University City), Alvar Aalto (Art Museum), Werner March (Museum), and Pier Luigi Nervi. Of these only the Sports Hall and the University City were completed.
Like Makiya, Chadirji also articulated his thoughts in a number of publications, among them Taha Street and Hammersmith and Concepts and Influences: Towards a Regionalised International Architecture. But unlike Makiya, Chadirji does not reject international and technologically dominated architecture; instead he attempts to integrate his own interpretation of regional traditions into the mainstream of development. In 1991 he published a book devoted to the major work of the Iraqi past: The Ukhaidir and the Crystal Palace.
The first phase of Chadirji's work in Baghdad, 1956 to 1962, was dominated by his designs for a number of houses. His European education is still quite visible, but his first steps toward a recognition of local values and regional tradition can be seen in Wabah House (1953). Chadirji's interest in old buildings of the region became more apparent when he was commissioned to design a monument in Baghdad for the Workers' Housing Scheme in 1960: He chose the arch from Ctesiphon in Iran as his symbolic motif.
In his personal recollections Chadirji states that he entered a new phase around 1965. The Veterinary Hospital (1964), the Academy of Science in Baghdad (1965), the School for Veterinary Medicine in Baghdad (1965-1967), and the Tobacco Monopoly Company building in Baghdad (1966) have a tendency to reuse elements and materials from the Islamic past. Clearly, relevant historic monuments, such as the palace at Ukhaidir and the Great Mosque at Samarra, made an important impact on Chadirji. This development continued in his houses of the 1970s, for example, the Villa Hamood in Baghdad and the house of the architect in Baghdad (1979), in which traditional local motifs, such as the reed huts (mudhifs) of old Mesopotamia, were translated into a contemporary form. His interest in traditional building forms in the Arab world led him to investigate, among others, the old Yemeni architecture in Sanaa.
Chadirji's commissions embrace a wide range of building types; significant among the commercial, educational, and residential buildings are those dedicated to social welfare, such as orphanages in Dohuk and Arbil (1969) and the Institute for the Deaf, Mute, and Mentally Retarded (1970). The basic transformations and the new challenges of more socially responsible architectural commissions are clearly manifested.
Since 1967, Chadirji's work has expanded to other Arab states. They include housing complexes in Kuwait (1967-1968), a cinema and office building in Bahrein (1968), plans for a hospital in Riyadh (1977), for the Dharan Medical Center and Dental Clinic (1977), and for the National Theater in Abu Dhabi (1977). In 1983 Chadirji left Iraq and emigrated to Cambridge, primarily devoting himself to research. The most important aspect of Chadirji's work, including his buildings and his writings, is his insight into the process of creating an architecture that merges ancient and modern into a new solution. Tradition continues as a creative spirit, the basis of all human endeavor. Not only can this achievement serve as a model for the younger generation of architects in his own country and region but, through an understanding of the principles of creative transformation in general, for other parts of the world as well.
INTERNATIONAL IMPORTS
In spite of the important works by Makiya and Chadirji, the major public buildings in the country were designed by foreign architects. Broad areas of planning and large-scale construction remained in the hands of architects from the United States, Greece, England, and Scandinavia. The master plan for the city of Baghdad (1960), for example, was designed by the Greek planner Constantinos A. Doxiadis, as were several of the new sectors of the city, such as Sector l0 in western Baghdad. Doxiadis's plan included complete neighborhoods, with public buildings, mosques, schools, shops, public baths, and parks. They were created according to patterns of settlement planning but with little reference to building types from the regional past.
In recent years the commissions for residential architecture in various sectors of the city of Baghdad have concentrated on bringing traditional elements into a complex interrelation with contemporary urban requirements, and the majority of work was given to foreign architectural firms such as The Architects Collaborative (Khulafa Street), Reinick Consult (Haifa Street), Heinle, Wischer & Partners (Haifa Street Development), Carlfried Mutschler, Ricardo Bofill, OTH, and Richard England (Bab ai-Sheikh No.2 development, 1980), Arthur Erickson (Abu Nawas Project), Architectural and Planning Partnership (redevelopment of Kadhimiya), and Sheppard, Robson & Partners (section in Bab al-Sheikh). The result of these comprehensive endeavors was a rich variety of building types developed in terms of regional identity, which were more or less successful in their implementation.10
Other major commissions for individual buildings were given to architects such as Kaija and Heikki Siren (Conference Palace in Baghdad, 1978-1982), Finnconsult (Recreational Area, Baghdad Island, 1984), Skaarup & Jesperson (287 row houses in Baghdad, 1983, in collaboration with the firm Planar), The Architects Co-Partnership (Al-Karame General Hospital of 1980) and Dissing & Weitling (Central National Bank of Iraq in Baghdad, 1980). The National Bank, designed in 1966 by the architect Arne Jacobsen from Denmark, was built after his death by his successors Dissing & Weitling. The high-rise concrete structure dominated by a large interior courtyard is located near the old harbor and the Emir's Palace in the center of the city.11
Some of the largest commissions in Iraq were given to The Architects Collaborative (TAC), among them the University City which was designed by Walter Gropius. The original plan of 1957 was for a complex of 273 buildings to be built in a vast area of open and enclosed spaces. Planned by the Ministry of Housing and Works in Baghdad, it was scheduled in three phases, the first to accommodate 5000 students, the second 8000 students, and in the final phase a total of 12,000 students. The main auditorium has a seating capacity for 18,000. Designed as a small city, the campus consists of three faculties: Engineering, Science, and the Humanities. Surrounding the central plaza is the academic nucleus, where the buildings stand close together in order to create areas of shadow necessary for the very hot climate. The windows mostly face north and south and for cooling purposes some of the roofs and walls were transformed into water walls by the German sculptor Norbert Kricke.
A large amount of work for University City was done in collaboration with the Iraqi architect Hisham A Munir. Munir studied at the American University in Beirut and at universities in Texas and Los Angeles, where he completed his studies in 1956. After his return to Iraq he opened an office with Medhat Ali Madhloom. After 1959 he collaborated mainly with the American firm TAC. In 1956 he began planning and building the second largest university in Iraq, the University of Mosul. In comparison to the master plan for the University of Baghdad, Mosul evidences a stronger assimilation of traditional elements, especially in the contemporary use of domed structures in the central library and the mosque. Other works by Munir in collaboration with TAC are the Sheraton Hotels in Baghdad and Basra (1981); the latter was largely destroyed in the Iran-Iraq war. Hisham A. Munir has also had a number of other notable commissions: the Iraqi Reinsurance Company (1976) and the Agricultural Complex (1975) in Baghdad and the Al-Sabah Complex in Kuwait (1976).
PERSPECTIVES ON THE FUTURE
In spite of recent difficulties in Iraqi architecture there are several forces at work that may one day lead to a most fruitful development. These are visible in the works and designs of Basil al-Bayati, Maath al-Alousi, Abbad al-Radi, and Zaha Hadid. Although they are not living in Iraq, each has achieved international recognition that one day could become decisive for Iraq.
Basil al-Bayati studied at Baghdad University and at University College in London, where he was a student of Mohamed Saleh Makiya. His work is manifested in plans and publications that express an exuberance for visual forms rare in the Arab world today. His books deal with general ideas of a contemporary Arab architecture (Process and Pattern, 1981; Community and Unity, 1983; The City and the Mosque, 1984; Basil al-Bayati: Recent Work, 1988). His projects encompass a wide variety of architectural possibilities and transcend generally accepted patterns. While Al-Bayati's 1968 plan for a new central district for Baghdad was still within the tradition of contemporary Arab architects, his exuberant, expressive design for the Al-Nakhlash Telecommunication Tower (1974) transcended earlier limits and explored new possibilities of design. Among his spectacular projects outside of Iraq are the Palm Mosque of King Saud University in Riyadh (1984) and the design for the Edinburgh Great Mosque (1989), as well as several projects for Oman, Yemen (Qasr Ghundan Hotel, 1993), and other Arab states. In all of his buildings an organic obsession with flower forms and old Islamic symbolism has been merged into a fantastic alternative architecture for the future.12
Maath al-Alousi studied in Ankara and London and practices out of offices in Beirut, Athens, and Baghdad. Between 1961 and 1974 he worked with the firm Iraq Consult. Al-Alousi's work is more realistic in its general orientation, beginning with his own house in Baghdad of 1966 and continuing with several buildings for Iraq Consult as well as urban projects in Baghdad. In his Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Oman (1976), the tradition of Iraq Consult was continued in a wider regional application, as were his various projects for Doha, Sharjah, and Dubai in the 1970s. In his own house in Baghdad (1985), a new realistic ground was achieved, in which tradition and contemporary requirements were brought into harmony. Based on the principle of the cube, which surrounds the central internal courtyard, the building has a view of the Tigris River. In his Al-Basma Hospital (1990) this courtyard principle was expanded to a larger public building type. Within the context of the urban renewal of Baghdad, his Haifa Street Development, 1980-1984, faced the challenge of mass housing and found a convincing solution within the requirements of the program. Two thousand dwellings are integrated into buildings for public functions, with open urban spaces for multiple use. And in the upgrading of Medinat Saddam of 1982-1983, the architect used his expertise to restore a complete neighborhood.
Several of Al-Alousi's more recent works have expanded to other Arab states, such as Kuwait (Banking Studies Center, 1980) and Dubai (Deira Greek Corniche, 1978). In the foreword to Al-Alousi's Visual Diary of an Arab Architect, the Iraqi writer Jabra I. Jabra accurately characterizes the use of the arch in Al-Alousi's work, his goals as an architect, and the situation of contemporary Iraqi architecture in general:
One must be cautious here lest one should assume, as many people seem to do, that simply by employing the arch in however an outward form, the architect is re-activating Arab tradition. Alousi is too sophisticated a thinker and designer to accept such a facile attitude--an attitude which has indeed given us a lot of bad architecture in recent years. He is fully aware of all that should go organically into a plan to make the arch not merely a seeming continuation of the past, but a crucial structural factor in the embodiment of a vision of the present, evocative of the past but not overpowered by it.
The Iraqi architect Abbad al-Radi was educated in Cambridge, England, and at MIT in the United States. He worked for a year with James Cubitt in Libya. Through his firm Planar he completed several works in Iraq and the UAE, some in collaboration with Skaarup and Jespersen (Abi Nawa Residential Development in Baghdad, 1980-1984).
By far the most revolutionary contemporary Arab architect is Zaha Hadid, who from her office in London has achieved worldwide fame by questioning given modes of architectural design and thinking. She was educated at the American University in Beirut and at the Architectural Association in London and in her early years was influenced by the teaching of Rem Koolhaas. While still an unknown Iraqi architect, she won first prize in the international competition for the Peak in Hong Kong. Reaching beyond the limits of the modernist vocabulary in architecture, Zaha Hadid created a new attitude as to how buildings should be envisioned. She sees them in line both with the existing topographic reality and with a renewed interpretation of history. The necessary step beyond these given elements in her design creates something previously unknown. Although few and small, her realizations in Japan, Germany, and Holland and her 1983 plan for the Al-Wahda Sports Center in Abu Dhabi are innovations of an ingeniously provocative architecture. And while these early works do not yet incorporate the specific Iraqi tradition, this, hopefully, will be present in her future buildings.14
NOTES
1. Kanan Makiya, Post-Islamic Classicism: A Visual Essay on the Architecture of Mohamed Makiya. London: 1990, p. 18.
2. André Parrot, The Tower of Babel. New York: 1975.
3. U. Kultermann, Visible Cities, Invisible Cities: Urban Symbolism and Historical Continuity. St. Louis, Mo.: 1988, p. 6.
4. Quoted after Helen Chapin Metz, Iraq: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: 1990, p. 10.
5. H. Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient. Harmondsworth, England: 1970; Der Tigris des alten Mesopotamien: Irak 1980. Exhibition catalog. Hannover, Germany: 1981.
6. Henri Stierlin, Islam, vol. I.: Cologne: 1996, pp. 126-128. El-Mutawakil also commisioned the Abu Dulaf Mosque in Samarra in 859.
7. Mohamed Saleh Makiya. "The Arab House: A Historical Review," Proceedings of the 1984 Colloquium on the Arab House. Newcastle upon Tyne, England: 1986, p. 12.
8. Kanan Makiya, Post-Islamic Classicism, pp. 103-106. Kanan Makiya also recognized elements in the design which he compared to Albert Speer's installations in Nuremberg for the annual rallies of the Nazi Party. According to Stavros Aspropoulos, "Hussein associates himself with Nebuchadnezzar II." See "Saddam Hussein's Politics of Archaeology," Journal of Art, Dec. 1990, 46.
9. K. Bazarow, "Modern Arab Architecture," Arts and Artists, 6:7, 1978.
10. Sherban Cantacucino, "Baghdad Resurgent," Mimar, 6, 1982.
11. Arkitektur, 2, 1980.
12. Basil al-Bayati, Recent Work. London: 1988.
13. Maath al-Alousi, The Visual Diary of an Arab Architect. London: 1983.
14. Zaha Hadid, Planetary Architecture Two London: 1983; Zaha Hadid, Linien. Zürich: 1993. |
