Heritage buildings in Baghdad struggle with extermination

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[size=52]Heritage buildings in Baghdad struggle with extermination[/size]

[size=45]An elite group of Iraqi architects directed a sharp criticism at the unprecedented measures taken by the successive official administrations supervising the capital, Baghdad, and the continuous demolition of its heritage buildings, until Baghdad became a cement city whose face is painted every day in colors that do not befit its antiquity, its status, and its age, which exceeds 1,000 years.[/size]
[size=45]Among the most prominent people concerned with this phenomenon is the Iraqi engineer and city designer, Taghlib Al-Waeli, who strongly criticizes the Baghdad Municipality for what he describes as the chaos that accompanies the reconstruction of Baghdad without attention to its history, neglect of its heritage and the approved standards, which he says “lack accuracy and knowledge of history, and the absence of craftsmanship in style and methods.” Dealing with its historical and heritage buildings together.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Waeli publicly accuses the Baghdad Municipality of being responsible for neglecting the property and buildings of the capital, and that it will “destroy the city’s historic face, which extends back centuries, by using cheap paint and resorting to sanding surfaces and many other things, to justify spending huge amounts of money on reconstruction.”[/size]
[size=45]Regarding the value of Baghdad and its architectural heritage, Khaled Al-Sultani, professor of engineering at the University of Baghdad, says, “Historic cities have an additional privilege compared to contemporary cities. Baghdad is one of those cities whose landscape includes important historical monuments in addition to being a contemporary city, and this functional duality of Baghdad necessitates our “We should not isolate or neglect this important historical aspect of the city’s uniqueness, but rather keep it as a historical witness that enriches the scene and makes it a source for proposing design approaches that belong to the spirit of the place, which makes the urban scene close to the taste of the residents, and distances from the city the state of Westernization inherent in the plans of the majority of contemporary cities.” .[/size]
[size=45]The engineering professor confirms, “We need a careful pause and a deep and comprehensive look to understand the objectives of urban planning, just as we need to respect the controls and laws that take into account the sanctity of those monuments and their value in that plan. Otherwise, we are heading to a situation in which we will not be able to preserve those monuments, just as it is not possible to Its presence adds something positive to the plan of our ancient cities.” Ihsan Fathi, an architect and planner who specializes in heritage preservation, believes that “the historical areas in Baghdad, namely Rusafa, Karkh, Kadhimiya, and Adhamiya, until the 1920s, with their compact and dense urban fabric, constituted a total area of ​​about seven square kilometers, and consisted of thousands of traditional houses.” With open internal courtyards, distinctive houses directly overlooking the Tigris River, and hundreds of mosques, shrines, markets, khans, and historical baths distinguished by their Baghdadi architectural style.”[/size]
[size=45]He added, “But the identity of the great historical city that was the center of the Islamic world for about 500 years began to be subjected to change and destruction through the urban development and modernization processes that accelerated in historical areas since the 1930s.” Fathi confirms that “all these modern projects and wide streets have destroyed and distorted Baghdad’s historical areas to a great extent. Indeed, the latest surveys indicate that what remains of Baghdad’s historical fabric currently does not exceed 15 percent of its original historical area, and even these remains are now threatened with removal or collapse due to... Total neglect and lack of maintenance, and in contrast to what happened in a number of historical cities in the world, and even in Arab cities in Tunisia and Morocco, where the ancient cities, their walls and gates were preserved, and modern urbanism was allowed to build outside them and not inside them except in very exceptional cases.”[/size]
[size=45]Fathi goes on to talk about the most dangerous phenomenon that Baghdad suffers from, which is “the almost complete absence of any kind of municipal control over urban planning in Baghdad. Over the past 10 years, the phenomenon of dividing former residential plots of land has spread, which were basically divided into areas ranging from 600 and 200 square metres, into very small plots, some of which do not exceed 50 square metres, and we began to see real estate dealers buying houses in Adhamiya, Al-Mansour, Al-Atifiyah, Karrada, and any other available place, to divide the 600 meters into 10 residential floors, in complete disregard and blatant defiance of the applicable laws. The window that specifies the minimum permissible area is 200 square metres.”[/size]
[size=45]He explains, “If we consider that the current population of the city of Baghdad is 8 million people, and that its area within the municipal boundaries is about 900 square kilometers, the population density is about 8,850 people per square kilometer, and this number is actually high if we compare it to other similar cities.” .[/size]
[size=45]Fathi believes that “Baghdad, this great historical city that has survived for more than 1,250 years until now, is currently reeling under crushing blows coming at it from many sides that do not even care about its existence. It is struggling with death in every sense of the word.”[/size]
[size=45]• Source: Independent Arabic[/size]
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