Architecture, Power and Identity The University Campus as a Product of Time and Place

This research seeks to explore the relationship between the different ideologies of the political power and identifying the national identity through manipulating the architecture and the urban design. Exploring how the colonial and post-independence phases in Iraq have utilised this relationship to enhance the national identity and empower the nation’s independence, through the lens of the University of Baghdad architecture which was designed by Walter Gropius to become one of the most influential post-independence urban projects in Iraq , by exploring its narrative as a product of this specific time and place.
The post-independence phase could be considered as one of the most challenging stages in the development of modern Iraq. It witnessed several dramatic events and changes at Iraqi, as well as wider Arab and international levels. By the end of the Second World War, and particularly during the 1950s, Iraq entered an era of progress regarding its economy, its social-cultural development as well as its urban development where the oil industry and its generated revenue have to be considered as one of the main factors that influenced the new image as an independent nation.
Yet, questing this newly to be defined national identity was one of the main problematic issues in the post-colonial city’s transformation. It was intrinsically linked with the political ideologies and its transforming powers, which aimed to manipulate the urban environment in a way to enhance national identity and enforce political independence. This could be highly factual in the case of Baghdad, which has witnessed extraordinary efforts to modernize and develop its image as a modern capital, when architecture was one of the principal means that generated these changes on the ground. This research argues that the University of Baghdad campus which was originally conceived and approved by the Iraq monarchy yet constructed during the Republic of Iraq should be explored through its relation to the social-cultural and political context that accompanied its establishment.
The primary contribution of this research is based on offering a new perspective to understand how the colonial and post-independence phases in Iraq have utilised the architecture to enhance the national identity and empower the nation’s independence, through the lens of the University of Baghdad campus and its narrative as a product of this specific time and place, and how the university campus has been manipulated to promote a version of identities that would support and help to legitimise different political ideologies.

Keywords: Modernity in Middle East Cities, Architecture mobility, Modernity in Non -West, Identity representation and Power legitimation