Prolific and prominent architect Rifat Chadirji launched his office, Iraq Consult, in Baghdad in the late 1950s. In less than 20 years, Chadirji’s design output reached almost 100 buildings, ranging from monuments and residences to government 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 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 cataloguing his works.
Chadirji’s photographs appear on the sheets that form his building index—published for the first time in this book.
About the Authors
Mark Wasiuta is an Architect, Curator and Writer who teaches at Columbia University, and whose research exhibitions focus on under-examined practices of the postwar period.
Akram Zaatari has played a critical role in developing the formal, intellectual and institutional infrastructure of Beirut’s contemporary art scene, producing more than 40 videos, 12 books and countless installations of photographic material, all pursuing a range of interconnected themes, subjects and practices related to excavation, political resistance, the lives of former militants and much more.
About the Publishers
Founded in 2015 with the mission of promoting the talent of artists from the region, Kaph Books is a publishing house based in Beirut, Lebanon, and specialising in quality art books on Middle-Eastern artists or art practices. Each book is unique, created in collaboration with the artists and contributors with high technical and design quality.
The Arab Image Foundation is an independent association forging new pathways for photography and image practices. Uniquely positioned at the intersection of artistic creation, research and archiving, the association explores, questions and confronts the complex social and political realities of our times.
