Abstract
Baghdad is an ancient city. Its continued lineage from ancient
to contemporary has seen it embody every phase of human existence. Recently it
has hosted violence destruction and chaos. This project explores a response to
that turbulent history on two interrelated levels.
The first is architecture. The project proposes a
reinstatement of Kaliph Al Mansur’s original Baghdad into its original position
within the contemporary city fabric. It explores of the problems of security
and civil collapse on architecture and how built form might influence a
solution. It’s response, an enforced return to culture and order through a
distinct architectural form. Modern concepts of expansion are culpable for the
distraught situation of the city today. A different way must be sought. By
appropriating the archetype of the citadel and reorganising the chronology of
Baghdad’s development, the proposal creates a new city by returning to the old.
It seeks to progress through consolidation and retreat.
The second level is the city. The project explores the
idea of the urban void. It translates the unformed emptiness of the current
site condition into a very specific emptiness. An emptiness charged with a
concrete purpose. Place is created from the original site material by framing
it within a perfect form.
In doing so, through symbolic formal and programmatic
analysis of Al Mansur’s city, the project interrogates evolving concepts of
civic space within the altered priorities urbanisation. The creation of such
space by carving void from a substrate of blocks cannot be achieved within the
infrastructural network that defines the city today. The proposal as a project
for the city looks to circumvent this contradiction and find a new means of
creating an urban void. A void that Baghdad can retreat into, so it may survive
long enough for recent wounds to heal.
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| Aerial view of central Baghdad |
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| Plan showing major and minor roads |
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| Plan that uses existing roads to determine the location of the original city |
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| Violent site clearance |
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| Image showing outer perimeter wall and reinstatement of main generative axes |
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