Conserve and redevelop the Medina of the Kadhimiya area, Baghdad, architectural project, 1981

The Mayoralty of Baghdad, Ed.: Conservation and redevelopment of the area around the Kadhimiyeh Shrine at Kadhimiye, Baghdad. Consultants: The Architectural and Planning Partnership and Mahmood Ali and Partners, United Kingdom and Iraq. Baghdad: Self published, s.a. [1981].

Oblong-Folio. 105 leaves and 8 not numbered chapter leaves. Colour offset, montage and cliché on glossy paper, in the original screw post binding with ornamental gilt title on black and green leatherette boards.

Probably unique, profusely illustrated documentation from 1981 about a architectural project to conserve and redevelop the Medina of the Kadhimiya neighbourhood in Baghdad, Iraq.

Content: The history of the Arab Medina of Kadhimiya, an area in the North of Baghdad named after and built around the »al-Kadhimiya Mosque«, dates back to the 8th century. Kadhimiya is considered a holy city by a majority of Shiites. The London based architect Mahmood Ali, who acted as a executing consultant to the Mayoralty of Baghdad for this project, focussed on conversation and at the same time modernisation of the organic structure of the Medina, starting hist planning from the first urban unit „the cell or house plot“ which is surrounded by and connected through a network of cul-de-sac streets with the mosque in the centre and the bazaar around it. Covered chapters include exhaustive accounts and statistics about „housing“, „generic house, „bazaars“, „hotel“, „landscaping“, „services“ and „accommodation“, mostly in English, in some parts also in Arab.

Illustration: Most remarkably the portfolio is profusely illustrated throughout with floor plans and ground plans (of houses, rows of houses, even whole neighbourhoods), elevations and sections, thereby considering all levels from basement to the second floor.

What makes present project documentation presumably unique is that all plans are executed in detail by hand using countless graphical elements (probably cut-outs from microfilms) tipped-on the underlying printed ground plans and floor plans. also incorporated are numerous reproductions of sketches, drawings and statistical tables.

Condition: Spine, edges and corners in parts slightly torn, bumped and worn, paper with slight storage odour, otherwise well preserved.