“The images displayed, however, inadvertently became floating signifiers, referring to a past but not to a history. Moreover, the images, which were meant to convey destruction, actually connoted a historical vacuum.”

Publication: “Every Building in Baghdad: The Rifat Chadirji Archives at the Arab Image Foundation,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 76, No. 3 (September 2017).

Keywords: Rifat Chadirji, Graham Foundation, exhibition, review, architect, architecture, design, buildings, urbanism, photography, society, culture, modernism, post-WWII, 20th century, history, Baghdad, Iraq, South West Asia, Arab world, Chicago

Image: Rifat Chadirji and Graham Foundation