The Plan for Greater Baghdad was a project done by American architect
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
for a
cultural center
A cultural center or cultural centre is an organization, building or complex that promotes culture and arts. Cultural centers can be neighborhood community arts organizations, private facilities, government-sponsored, or activist-run.
Asia
* Cen ...
,
opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets.
While some venues are constructed specifically fo ...
, and university on the outskirts of
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
,
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
, in 1957–58. The most thoroughly developed aspects of the plan were the opera house, which would have been built on an island in the middle of the
Tigris
The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...
together with museums and a towering gilded statue of
Harun al-Rashid
Abu Ja'far Harun ibn Muhammad al-Mahdi ( ar
, أبو جعفر هارون ابن محمد المهدي) or Harun ibn al-Mahdi (; or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as Harun al-Rashid ( ar, هَارُون الرَشِيد, translit=Hārūn ...
, and the university. Due to the 1958 collapse of the
Hashemite monarchy
The Hashemites ( ar, الهاشميون, al-Hāshimīyūn), also House of Hashim, are the royal family of Jordan, which they have ruled since 1921, and were the royal family of the kingdoms of Hejaz (1916–1925), Syria (1920), and Iraq (1921 ...
, development of the project stopped, and it was never built.
Wright was among the many elite Western architects invited to Iraq as part of a campaign to modernize the capital city. Wright distinguished himself from this group by developing a plan making specific reference to Iraqi history and culture. For Wright, the plan was one of a handful of grandiose, outsize designs produced in the later part of his career.
Commission and history
In the 1950s, Iraq was awash with new oil money. The deal negotiated in the first years of the decade with the Western-controlled
Iraq Petroleum Company
The Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), formerly known as the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), is an oil company that had a virtual monopoly on all oil exploration and production in Iraq between 1925 and 1961. It is jointly owned by some of the worl ...
, which held a monopoly on oil exploration and development, increased the government's share of revenues substantially. Some of this money was dedicated to the construction of new public buildings in Baghdad. As the government, headed by
King Faisal II
Faisal II ( ar, الملك فيصل الثاني ''el-Melik Faysal es-Sânî'') (2 May 1935 – 14 July 1958) was the last King of Iraq. He reigned from 4 April 1939 until July 1958, when he was killed during the 14 July Revolution. This regici ...
, developed a general scheme for the capital, it determined to call upon world-famous architects—mostly Westerners—to participate in the modernization of the city. The decision was a break with the city's long-established traditional forms, as the architects selected were among the titans of
modern architecture
Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that for ...
and were intended to build within that aesthetic.
Numerous prominent Western architects were invited to Iraq on government commission, including
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one ...
,
Le Corbusier,
Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (15 December 1907 – 5 December 2012), known as Oscar Niemeyer (), was a Brazilian architect considered to be one of the key figures in the development of modern architecture. Niemeyer was ...
, and
Wright
Wright is an occupational surname originating in England. The term 'Wright' comes from the circa 700 AD Old English word 'wryhta' or 'wyrhta', meaning worker or shaper of wood. Later it became any occupational worker (for example, a shipwright i ...
.
Wright
Wright is an occupational surname originating in England. The term 'Wright' comes from the circa 700 AD Old English word 'wryhta' or 'wyrhta', meaning worker or shaper of wood. Later it became any occupational worker (for example, a shipwright i ...
received a commission for an opera house in January 1957 and accepted it before the end of the month. He visited the city in May. Originally, the commission called for the opera house to be built on a site in the center of the city. On his visit, Wright instead selected an island in the middle of the Tigris as his site; the area was at the time undeveloped as only recent flood-control measures had made it suitable for construction. With this larger site available to him, Wright was free to develop a plan for not simply an opera house but a full cultural center. After returning to his studio at
Taliesin
Taliesin ( , ; 6th century AD) was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the '' Book of Taliesin''. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts ...
, he developed a concept for a university on the left bank of the Tigris. (Ultimately, the university plan used was one by Gropius, which
exists today.)
In July 1958, the Hashemite monarchy collapsed, King Faisal II was killed, and a new government led by
Abd al-Karim Qasim
Abd al-Karim Qasim Muhammad Bakr al-Fadhli al-Zubaidi ( ar, عبد الكريم قاسم ' ) (21 November 1914 – 9 February 1963) was an Iraqi Army brigadier and nationalist who came to power when the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown d ...
took over the country. At first the new government indicated that it intended to continue working with Wright, but they soon objected to the scale and extravagance of Wright's ideas; they declared, in the words of Robert Twombly, "that the people needed food, clothing and shelter more than floating gardens, gold fountains, and a mammoth zoo." Wright's work on the project stopped and it was never built; Wright would die less than a year later.
Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium
The Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium is a multipurpose performing arts center at 1200 South Forest Avenue at East Apache Boulevard in Tempe, Arizona, within the main campus of Arizona State University (ASU). The auditorium, which bears the name ...
at
Arizona State University is a simplified version of Wright's opera house design.
Isle of Edena
Wright's opera house was designed for his island site, which he intended to rename from Pig Island to Edena. The island was to be connected to the mainland by two bridges. One, the Low Bridge, crossed the narrower west channel of the Tigris and met up with the planned King Faisal Esplanade; the line of the bridge and esplanade passed through the opera house and pointed toward Mecca. The larger Great Bridge was to cross the east channel of the river and connect the island to the university campus there.
At the north end of the island, Wright envisioned a 300-foot statue of
Harun al-Rashid
Abu Ja'far Harun ibn Muhammad al-Mahdi ( ar
, أبو جعفر هارون ابن محمد المهدي) or Harun ibn al-Mahdi (; or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as Harun al-Rashid ( ar, هَارُون الرَشِيد, translit=Hārūn ...
built of gilded
sheet metal
Sheet metal is metal formed into thin, flat pieces, usually by an industrial process. Sheet metal is one of the fundamental forms used in metalworking, and it can be cut and bent into a variety of shapes.
Thicknesses can vary significantly; ex ...
and placed on a spiraling base resembling the Malwiya Tower at the
Great Mosque of Samarra
, native_name_lang = ara
, image = Samara_spiralovity_minaret_rijen1973.jpg
, image_upright = 1.4
, alt =
, caption = The #Minaret, spiral minaret of the mosque
, map_type ...
. The vertical faces would depict camels climbing the spiraling ramp.
An avenue was to run the length of the island from the statue to the opera house, and the middle of the island occupied by art museums and shopping areas, forming a cultural center.
Opera house
The opera house itself was intended to serve the
Baghdad Symphony Orchestra. Wright's design was flexible enough to accommodate anywhere from 1600 to 7000 people. The building sits on a hill and is approached by a road spiraling up from the base of the hill to the opera house at the top. A pool surrounds the theater and is itself surrounded by gardens.
The building's most significant feature was a large
proscenium arch, which was visible inside the theater but also continued outside the building and plunged into the surrounding pool. The arch, which Wright described as a "crescent rainbow," contained
roundel
A roundel is a circular disc used as a symbol. The term is used in heraldry, but also commonly used to refer to a type of national insignia used on military aircraft, generally circular in shape and usually comprising concentric rings of diff ...
s depicting scenes from ''
The Book of One Thousand and One Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...
''. In additional allusions to the local culture, the building is topped with a statue of
Aladdin holding his lamp and a spire which Wright intended to represent the "Sword of Mohammed."
The
Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium
The Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium is a multipurpose performing arts center at 1200 South Forest Avenue at East Apache Boulevard in Tempe, Arizona, within the main campus of Arizona State University (ASU). The auditorium, which bears the name ...
at
Arizona State University's
Tempe, Arizona
, settlement_type = City
, named_for = Vale of Tempe
, image_skyline = Tempeskyline3.jpg
, imagesize = 260px
, image_caption = Tempe skyline as se ...
campus is reputed to have been based on this opera house design.
University campus
The Iraqi government planned a new university campus for
Baghdad University
The University of Baghdad (UOB) ( ar, جامعة بغداد ''Jāmi'at Baghdād'') is the largest university in Iraq, tenth largest in the Arab world, and the largest university in the Arab world outside Egypt.
Nomenclature
Both University ...
on a peninsula formed by a bend in the Tigris. Wright planned for a campus surrounded by a wide, circular earthen barrier, which Wright called the "curriculum." This barrier provides definition to the campus, and also contains roads and parking that served the campus's transportation needs. The space inside the barrier is reserved for pedestrian traffic only, and features fountains and gardens to create a parklike environment.
The school's various departments and academic faculties were in buildings attached to the circular "curriculum." The center of the campus is devoted to television and radio studios and towers, which were intended to demonstrate the modernity of Baghdad. Architectural historian
Neil Levine
Neil Levine is an American music industry executive. He is best known as the founder of the hip-hop label Penalty Recordings, and is currently the CEO of its successor company, Penalty Entertainment. Levine helped to launch the careers of artist ...
observes that the circular plan for the University recalls the
original plan for Baghdad developed by the caliph
Al-Mansur
Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Manṣūr (; ar, أبو جعفر عبد الله بن محمد المنصور; 95 AH – 158 AH/714 CE – 6 October 775 CE) usually known simply as by his laqab Al-Manṣūr (المنصور) w ...
.
Criticism, analysis, and relation to Wright's oeuvre
Architectural
The Baghdad project was one of numerous grandiose ideas Wright developed in the late years of his career, almost all of which were too expensive or impracticable ever to be built. These included the
Point Park Civic Center and
The Illinois
The Mile-High Illinois, Illinois Sky City, or simply The Illinois is a visionary skyscraper that is proposed to be over high, conceived and described by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in his 1957 book, ''A Testament''. The design, intend ...
. James Dennis and Lu Wenneker describe these projects, particularly the Baghdad plan, as "dream projects…large scale ornaments spread out upon the landscape." Certain features of the Baghdad design, such as the spiraling ramps, are characteristic of Wright's work. The spiraling ramp appears memorably in the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
and also in unbuilt projects such as the
Gordon Strong Automobile Objective and the Point Park Civic Center.
The depiction of Arabian cultural themes in the opera house arch results in what Wendell Cole describes as the "most fantastic" architecture Wright ever produced.
Cultural significance
The plan is one of Wright's few architectural involvements with a non-Western culture; the only other example of similar prominence is his design for the
Imperial Hotel Imperial Hotel or Hotel Imperial may refer to:
Hotels Australia
* Imperial Hotel, Ravenswood, Queensland
* Imperial Hotel, York, Western Australia
Austria
* Hotel Imperial, Vienna
India
* The Imperial, New Delhi
Ireland
* Imperial Hotel, D ...
in Tokyo. While the Iraqi government, in commissioning Western architects, was focused on rapidly developing the capital, Wright was focused on preserving the distinct history and architectural tradition of the city. While visiting Baghdad he gave a speech to a group of Iraqi engineers, in which he contrasted the “spiritual integrity” of the Eastern world with the materialistic, commerce-focused society of the West. He implored them not to let architects come to the city and “put a cliché to work,” and recommended that they connect with “what is deep in the spirit.”
Levine observes that Wright's attempt to incorporate major elements of the city's history local culture stands out in comparison to the designs for Baghdad produced at about the same time by other prominent Western artists like Le Corbusier and Gropius: "the other invited Westerners proposed buildings that were in essence the same as they might have designed for their home countries, which in fact many originally were." For instance, Gropius's plan for the university included modern office towers similar to what might be found in an American or European city, and was built using the same principles his team had applied in designing American college campuses. However, Western architects attempting to build within the Islamic milieu opened themselves to criticism. Wright's familiarity with local history and culture was limited, and
Nicolai Ouroussoff
Nicolai Ouroussoff (russian: Николай Владимирович Урусов; born October 3, 1962) is a writer and educator who was an architecture critic for the ''Los Angeles Times'' and ''The New York Times''.
Biography
Born in Cambridg ...
argues that the decorative camels, the Aladdin statue, and other such features made the plan “an embarrassing example of Western chauvinism.” Levine describes Gropius's one nod to the setting, a domed mosque, as “an Orientalizing pastiche of
Saarinen's
Kresge Chapel at MIT.”
[Levine, 389.] A cynical perspective might posit that, while Wright evidently made an effort to consult the city's ''
genius loci'', he may have succeeded only in creating a patronizing appeal to four thousand years of tradition.
See also
*
List of Frank Lloyd Wright works
Frank Lloyd Wright designed over 425 houses, commercial buildings and other works.
"The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright" is a UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of a selection of eight buildings across the United States designe ...
References
* Cole, Wendell. "The Theatre Projects of Frank Lloyd Wright." ''Educational Theatre Journal''. Vol. 12, No. 2 (May 1960), 86-93. See particularly p. 92.
* Dennis, James M. and Lu B. Wenneker. "Ornamentation and the Organic Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright." ''Art Journal''. Vol. 25, No. 1 (Autumn 1965): 2-14.
* Levine, Neil. ''The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. pp. 383–404. This is part of Chapter IX, titled "Signs of Identity in an Increasingly One-Dimensional World;" the segment provides a comprehensive summary of the project.
*
Ouroussoff, Nicolai. "When Iraq Looked West." ''Los Angeles Times'', December 14, 2003: E49, E57. This is the second part of a four-part series entitled "In Search of Baghdad."
* Twombly, Robert. ''Frank Lloyd Wright''. New York: Wiley, 1979.
* Rocher, Yann. "L'éden vu d'avion", in ''Théâtres en utopie'', Actes Sud, Paris, 2014, 264-69.
* Stanek, Lukasz. "Miastoprojekt Goes Abroad. Transfer of Architectural Labor from Socialist Poland to Iraq (1958-1989)," The Journal of Architecture (London) 17, no. 3, 2012, 361–86.
Notes
External links
A reviewof the project in light of the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
, at CNN
Iraqat the All-Wright Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baghdad, Plan for Greater
Unbuilt buildings and structures
Frank Lloyd Wright buildings
Buildings and structures in Baghdad
1957 in Iraq
1950s in Baghdad