Baghdad Arts Deco

Download or read book Baghdad Arts Deco written by Caecilia Pieri and published by American Univ in Cairo Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An homage to the modern architectural landscape of Iraq. Despite dictatorship, international sanctions, and the ravages of war, Baghdad endures with a surprisingly exceptional modern architectural heritage. This beautifully illustrated study reveals the splendors of early twentieth-century architecture that still stand on the streets of Iraq's capital. From 1920 to 1950, in the process of nation-building, Baghdad was transformed into a true city built of brick, one that became the harbinger of the Arab architectural renaissance, its local traditions reinterpreted and adapted into a modern vernacular style. Caecilia Pieri's documentation foregrounds the physical reality of modern Baghdad, very different from the image that we normally receive from the media. She draws on a number of unpublished sources and documents, to present Baghdad's architecture in a historical perspective, and her striking photographs taken between 2003 and 2006 document the residential areas of the twentieth-century city, providing an unprecedented resource for historians, urban planners, and general readers interested in discovering a new face of a world capital. With essays by Rifat Chadirji, Ihsan Fethi, and Naïm Kattan.