Bagdad

188788 — Horsham: The Architectural and Planning Partnership and Mahmood Ali and Partners 1982. Baghdad resurgent - Arabian vernacular architecture meets modern urban planning First and sole edition rare: this the only copy to appear on auction records and we trace just one institutionally at Harvard. This impressively produced report concerns the historic Bab al-Sheikh neighbourhood in the Rusafa district of Baghdad a sensitive site that includes the mausoleum of Abdul-Qadir al-Gilani c. 1077-1166 founder of the Qadiriyya Sufi order. In 1980 the Mayoralty of Baghdad initiated plans to integrate Bab al-Sheikh into a wider development project. Previously some areas had been thoughtlessly levelled to make room for parking lots so local government consulted the distinguished Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji who opposed random redevelopment without consideration for older structures. To lead the project Chadirji brought in two Britons architects and planners John Warren and Professor Roy Worskett and architect Mahmood al-Ali who had previously made water liability studies in the area alongside "colleagues in Horsham London and Baghdad" foreword. Chadirji remarks that "Warren's planning studies were of remarkable quality and insight as regards the conceptual requirements" Chadirji & Mutschler p. 57. When it came to the Bab al-Sheikh Warren identified for conservation some twenty "houses of quality" as Chadirji calls them and Mutschler remarks that "Bab al-Sheikh is an old residential quarter … of great national importance … and the problem was to design an economically viable project that would fit the pattern of the old Islamic city with its mosque and buildings … Whoever intends to build upon the ground of a millennium-old culture has to combine its Arabian character and variety with the requirements of modern civilization". This report would have been produced for circulation among those most closely connected to the project and not intended for general release. Landscape small folio. Printed on coated paper illustrated throughout with architectural drawings plans and images of architectural models divisional titles printed on deep purple coated paper; separate APP image loosely inserted; text in English. Original screw-post binding nickel-plated screws green morocco-grain cloth covers gilt-lettered and decorated on both covers. A few abrasions to binding paper spines nicked and chipped at ends internally some faint tidemarks peripheral toning and general cockling a few leaves nicked at foot: very good. Rifat Chadirji and Carlfried Mutschler "The Bab al-Sheikh Project Baghdad. In Continuity and Change: Design Strategies for Large-Scale Urban Development" Margaret Bentley Sevcenko ed. Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture 1984. hardcover