This exhibition of several hundred original photographs examines the work of Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji through the collection of his documents held at the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut. With the work of his architectural office, Iraq Consult, and in his other roles as a planning consultant and as director of buildings for several government agencies, Chadirji became a pivotal cultural figure in Baghdad during the period of its postwar modernization from the 1950s through the 1970s. 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.
