Iraq is Infinite.
The symbol I put in the middle is the first symbol for “infinity” created by ancient Sumerians thousands of years ago. An explanation behind the infinity sign and the importance of it to Iraq is in the following TedTalk in Baghad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hOgX-L-FUUw
“How can you encapsulate thousands of years of culture and civilization into one design? Manhal Al-Habbobi accomplished this feat and will invoke your senses by taking you on a tour of Iraq’s ancient history emblazoned in a work of architectural genius. “
He has designed the plans for the new General Secretariat for the Council of Ministers in Baghdad. It looks amazing.
“Iraq is far too great for us to fear for it” - This brought tears to my eyes.
iraq
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Plan for Greater Baghdad - Frank Lloyd Wright
“A great culture deserves not only architecture of its time, but of its own”
Wright’s 1957 plan distilled an imagined memory of the ancient Abbasid city and went back even further to one of the oldest myths of mankind, the story of Adam and Eve. Quite apart from the political events that scuppered it, it was dismissed by modernist commentators at the time as an anachronistic phantasmagoria. But Mina Marefat persuasively argues that Wright’s work stands as a valuable symbol today, by showing profound respect for the very cultural heritage to which the west can be hostile. ‘The functions of an opera house, a civic centre and a university were clearly modern ones,’ she says, ‘but Wright gave them forms that linked them to the past and imbued them with didactic cultural messages, collective images shared by both east and west.’ Though the realization of Wright’s project would now be less imaginable than ever, it’s worth pausing to remember than when America’s greatest architect drew up a blueprint for Baghdad it was not chauvinistically western, nor an American attempt to destroy Iraqi culture. It was made in a spirit that future architects for the city might do well to study.
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THE PLAN OF BAGHDAD, CA. 760 A.D.
Black & White Illustration | 1242
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The Great Mosque of Samarra
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Ma-Adan - Iraq
The marsh dwellers have populated the Edenic wetlands for almost 5000 years. They were an almost completely self sufficient community with the marshes producing everything they needed to survive. Sturdy reeds reaching 20 feet became raw material for homes, baskets and boats, while tender reed shoots provided plentiful forage for water buffalo, who provided milk and dung, used as fuel for fires.
The marsh-dwelling people who in the 1950’s numbered about half a million people, have now dwindled to as few as 20,000 in Iraq. The Edenic wetlands that once gave refuge to a rich variety of wildlife have become lifeless, nearly waterless, salt-encrusted mudflats, since Saddam ordered the water source to be cut off just before he lost power. Today the Eden Again Project is attempting to release water back into the marshes, with the hope that the communities will return to their original site.