At New York’s Center for Architecture, an exhibition of models quietly constructed in Iraq reveals a lesser-known chapter of urban planning, showcasing the bold 20th-century dreams once envisioned for Baghdad. While it is common knowledge that international architectural masters of the 20th century occasionally worked outside their home countries, many who know their work well might be surprised to learn that luminaries such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Alvar Aalto all designed projects for Iraq.
An exhibition hosted by the New York AIA’s Center for Architecture, titled "City of Mirages: Baghdad, 1952-1982," introduces this overlooked body of work. The exhibition, on view through May 5, constructs a rich narrative that places these visionary architectural plans within their proper historical, political, and artistic context.
The 15 meticulously crafted models on display at the Center represent both built and unbuilt work by 11 different architectural practices. These masters were commissioned during the mid-century decades when ambitious Baghdad officials were actively working to create a modern city. The overarching hope of these local leaders was that forward-thinking design would actively shape and improve society, in addition to fundamentally transforming the physical built environment.
"This is a history we don’t know a lot about," says Rosamond Fletcher, director of exhibitions at the Center, who first heard about the show through a colleague. "The exhibition is historic in scope but relevant," she adds, noting its resonance as Baghdad continues its arduous attempts to rebuild after almost a decade of war and profound geopolitical turmoil.
Making its long-awaited U.S. debut at the Center for Architecture, the exhibition was originally organized for the Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya in Barcelona in 2008. Bringing the collection together was a remarkably difficult and dangerous undertaking, according to curator Pedro Azara, a professor at the Barcelona School of Architecture. Azara, whose academic research focuses on mythology and architecture, stumbled upon the topic in 2006 while investigating international architects who had taken on commissions in Baghdad during the mid-20th century. The uneven documentation surrounding these projects, coupled with a general lack of awareness regarding their current states of preservation or disrepair, immediately sparked his profound curiosity.
Determined to piece together this lost history, Azara began working closely with students and professors at the University of Baghdad’s architecture school. Together, they managed to build all but one of the physical models featured in the show. However, the process was fraught with peril. Fearing severe reprisal from various political factions over creating an exhibition destined for the West, the entire collaborative effort had to be shrouded in absolute secrecy.
Local students involved in the project had no idea they were actually building models for a Spanish exhibition. Communication channels were heavily encrypted, with messages and emails passing between the show’s international organizers remaining highly enigmatic. Furthermore, Azara himself told almost no one about his true intentions and activities when he traveled into Baghdad.
Once completed, the models at the Center for Architecture mostly stand alone, deliberately displayed without accompanying photography or architectural drawings. This smart visual trick allows visitors to imagine how, had they been fully realized, built, and left intact, these structures might have fundamentally influenced the urban fabric of the city. In stark reality, however, most of these grand projects met a much harsher fate: they became victims of war, suffered severe damage or total destruction, or simply moved past the drawing board and were never built at all.
Among the historical pieces on display is a 1957 mosque designed by Walter Gropius, The Architects’ Collaborative, and Hisham A. Munir, envisioned for the University of Baghdad campus. Their design brilliantly reduces the traditional mosque building type down to its essential dome, which delicately touches the ground at only three precise points.
Another major highlight is an opera house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright between 1957 and 1959. Though it was never built, the model sits on an artificial hill and is approached by a sweeping, spiraling road—a design maneuver that Wright took to an absolute extreme in his famous Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which was designed earlier but completed in 1959.
The exhibition also features a sports arena designed by Le Corbusier, innovative housing concepts created by the collaborative team of Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and John Rauch, and a monumental mosque designed by Ricardo Bofill that was commissioned by dictator Saddam Hussein. Hussein infamously held repeated competitions for the national mosque project for over two decades because he remained chronically unhappy with each successive jury’s chosen winner.
Providing a stark, sobering contrast to these idealistic historical projects, a large-scale model of contemporary Baghdad sits prominently in the Center’s double-height atrium. Viewed from above, it gives visitors a clear, grounded sense of the daily geographical hurdles and infrastructure challenges that the city’s seven million residents encounter each day. This modern reality is defined by a lack of efficient public transportation to deliver citizens to their jobs and a strict curfew that equates dusk with physical danger.
"We wanted to try to change the image we had in Spain of Iraq," says Azara, reflecting on his motivations for organizing the exhibition. "We also wanted to show that, while Spain was in the third world under Francisco Franco, Baghdad had been a really open place, with very contemporary art and a nonreligious society."
Complementing the historical exploration of Baghdad, the Center for Architecture is simultaneously showcasing a parallel exhibition on its lower level that addresses current work in the greater Middle East. On view through June 23, "CHANGE: Architecture and Engineering in the Middle East, 2000-Present" strikes a notably hopeful note, filled with glossy, futuristic digital renderings and striking photographs.
The Center had held an open call for both built and unbuilt architectural work undertaken in the Middle East over the preceding decade. The resulting 123 projects—which were designed for roughly 20 different Middle Eastern countries—are meant to serve as a comprehensive snapshot of what is happening in the region right now.
The contemporary showcase ranges widely in scope and geography, featuring high-profile undertakings such as Richard Meier’s Rothschild Tower in Tel Aviv, James Carpenter’s Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and 360 Architecture’s massive Basrah Sport City in Iraq, with both of the latter projects slated for completion in 2013.
