Though the ravaging effects of war make it difficult to visualize today, Baghdad was once a flourishing, cosmopolitan city that attracted the world’s foremost modern architects. City of Mirages: Baghdad, 1952-1982, at the New York Center for Architecture, reveals this surprising architectural history to a Western audience, displaying 16 models of built and unbuilt works by architects including Le Corbusier, Gropius (shown), and Venturi, Rauch, and Scott Brown. The city’s Modernist works of the 1950s were particularly influential in later decades on Iraqi architects’ efforts to create a contemporary Iraqi architectural style; the history is worth considering today as Baghdad digs out from the rubble and begins to rebuild. Through May 5. • cfa.aiany.org
Exhibit: ‘City of Mirages’
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Courtesy Col•legi d´Arquitectes de Catalunya
Walter Gropius, TAC (The Architects’ Collaborative) and Hisham A. Munir, University of Baghdad Campus, 1957-, Baghdad, Iraq
