The Baghdad Affair. How diplomacy supplanted one of the last major projects by Le Corbusier

Abstract

[EN] After the Iraqi Republican Revolution of 1958, the resultant government commissioned two parallel projects for two great Stadiums in Baghdad, with similar complementary features: one to the Swiss architect Le Corbusier – who had developed a previous project (1955-1958) for the monarch Faisal II –, continuously designed in his Paris studio until his death in 1965; another to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in Lisbon, entirely funded and supervised by this institution, and designed by two prominent Portuguese architects at the time: F. Keil do Amaral and Carlos M. Ramos. Facing a progressive administrative and financial chaos in the country, the Iraqi authorities opted for the Gulbenkian Foundation’s solution – built between 1962-1965 and inaugurated in 1966, after an intriguing diplomatic process -, postponing Le Corbusier’s proposals yet without breaking their contract with him. This essay presents an explanation for this mysterious “affair” based on a recent research conducted at the Presidency Archive of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, but also at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) where different documents reveal the continuous mismatch between Le Corbusier’s will and the Iraqi authorities procedures.

[ES] After the Iraqi Republican Revolution of 1958, the resultant government commissioned two parallel projects for two great Stadiums in Baghdad, with similar complementary features: one to the Swiss architect Le Corbusier – who had developed a previous project (1955-1958) for the monarch Faisal II –, continuously designed in his Paris studio until his death in 1965; another to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in Lisbon, entirely funded and supervised by this institution, and designed by two prominent Portuguese architects at the time: F. Keil do Amaral and Carlos M. Ramos. Facing a progressive administrative and financial chaos in the country, the Iraqi authorities opted for the Gulbenkian Foundation’s solution – built between 1962-1965 and inaugurated in 1966, after an intriguing diplomatic process -, postponing Le Corbusier’s proposals yet without breaking their contract with him. This essay presents an explanation for this mysterious “affair” based on a recent research conducted at the Presidency Archive of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, but also at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) where different documents reveal the continuous mismatch between Le Corbusier’s will and the Iraqi authorities procedures.