With his architectural office, Iraq Consult, and in his other roles, Chadirji became a pivotal cultural figure in Baghdad during the period of its postwar modernization from the 1950s through the 1970s. As an architect, as a planning consultant, and as director of buildings for several government agencies, Chadirji was central to the organization and consolidation of the image of the postwar city and helped foster the emergence of the factories, colleges, monopoly headquarters, communication structures, and the other new building types that appear in Baghdad following Iraq’s 1958 revolution. The texture of precarity within Chadirji’s photographs also underscores the institutional project of the Arab Image Foundation and its attempt to assemble, secure and preserve the photographic history of the Arab World.

Completed as the Manager of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery Exhibitions Crew. Later installed at the Graham foundation in Chicago.

All photos courtesy of James Ewing.​