Post-Islamic Classicism: A Visual Essay

Metamorphosing 'dead' Abbasid forms into living modern architecture lies at the roots of Mohamed Makiya's classicism as an architect. This essay charts the stages of this metamorphose is from the Khulafa Mosque [1963] and the Kuwait State Mosque [one of the largest in the world] through the vast and visionary schemes for Iraq of the late 1980s. Makiya's formerly complex and nuanced architecture, the author argues, is continuous, harmonious, and celebratory of an Islamic past. It is therefore too…