by Rifat Chadirji (Artist)
A sumptuous visual index of built works by the leading Iraqi architect
The prolific and prominent architect Rifat Chadirji (1926-2020) launched his office Iraq Consult in Baghdad in the late 1950s. In less than 20 years, his design output comprised almost 100 buildings, ranging from monuments and private residences to governmental and industrial buildings in Iraq and the Gulf Region. An avid photographer, Chadirji extensively documented his own architectural projects and the shifting image of Baghdad. Despite his fame, in the climate of suspicion that dominated a heavily policed Iraq, Chadirji was jailed in 1978. He was released two years later and eventually left Iraq in 1983 to devote himself to writing and to cataloging his works. Chadirji's photographs appear on the sheets that form his building index--published for the first time in this book. The index is both a scrupulous inventory of his building career and a testimony to its sudden end.