IRAQ: Baghdad’s revamped buildings await revitalization

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In the relatively calm district of Karada in Baghdad, stands a lone building severely contrasting with its downtrodden surroundings.

In a city that has and continues to witness countless bombings on a daily basis, it is hard to imagine how a multi-story window-clad building such as this one (right) would be able to withstand the daily onslaught of shock waves from explosions.

This is the shape of things to come in Baghdad — once the daily violence becomes something of the past.

The four-story building, which houses a bank, is old but has been completely refurbished with glazed, composite and granite cladding.

Driving through Baghdad, people will notice several buildings that have been given a makeover using similar materials. But some have sustained damage as a result of the aforementioned explosions, while others have been abandoned halfway through construction. Others are completed but uninhabited by the businesses that have been repelled because of lack of investment in post-war Iraq, left to wither in the harsh Iraqi climate.

Depending on the situation, it could be in the very near future that Baghdad’s commercial districts witness the blooming of such modern-looking phenomena. For now these buildings, seen sporadically across Baghdad, remain testimonies to what the city could have been.

— Said Rifai in Baghdad