Tag Archives: Rifat Chadirji

What’s new in Archnet for April 2020?

In 2003 Archnet went online with the goal of facilitating teaching, scholarship, and professional work of high quality by providing provide ready access to unique, high quality, visual and textual resources on the built environment, particularly that of Muslim societies and the wider developing world. 17 years later, that mission is proving more important than ever, as a global pandemic is keeping more than 90% of the world’s students away from their educational institutions. From elementary school to post-graduate education, people are teaching, studying, and researching remotely. We are gratified to know that Archnet seems to be helping some people […]

Rifat Chadirji, one of the “most influential shapers of modern Baghdad,” dead at 93

The staff of the Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries (AKDC@MIT), is saddened to learn of the death of the great Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji (December 6, 1926-April 10, 2020). Chadirji was “a thinker, author, critic, & rationalist architect with a refined aesthetic sensitivity, he devised a particular approach to architecture that he called international regionalism,” according to Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor and the Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT Rabbat went on to characterize the deceased architect as “one of the most influential shapers of modern Baghdad and an original theorist of architecture […]

Rifat Chadirji Archive includes drawings of his 1966 building destroyed in January 2019

In this post Betsy Baldwin, Collections Archivist in AKDC@MIT, reports on some drawings recently discovered in the archive of pioneering Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji. A recent set of original architectural drawings discovered within the Rifat Chadirji Archive include drawings of the National Insurance Company Building that he designed for Mosul. Constructed in 1966, this building was put to a shockingly horrible use in 2017 when ISIS used it to execute people it decided had broken Islamic law, most notably young gay men who were thrown from it to their deaths. After the recapture of Mosul, restoration was considered. Unfortunately, the […]

The Kamil and Rifat Chadirji Photographic Archive comes to AKDC@MIT

The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT) is pleased to announce that it is now the home of the Kamil and Rifat Chadirji Photographic Archive. Kamil Chadirji (1897-1968), born to an influential Baghdad family, played a central role in the political life of lraq as founder and President of the National Democratic Party. His position allowed him unique opportunities to take photographs throughout Iraq. Kamil’s son, Rifat Chadirji (b. 1926), perhaps better known as one of the most influential Iraqi architects of the 20th century[1], was also an accomplished photographer, author, teacher, and critic. Together, their vast collection spans […]

Pioneering Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji donates archive to AKDC

The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT is pleased to announce that is now the home of the Rifat Chadirji archive. One of the most influential Iraqi architects of the 20th century, Chadirji is also an accomplished photographer, author, teacher, and critic. Chadirji was born in Baghdad in 1926, was educated in the UK, and returned to Iraq upon graduating as an active participant in the modernization of the country, working with notable architects and designers from Europe, the United States, and Iraq including, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Alvar Aalto, and Mohamed Makiya. Chadirji has dedicated his […]