Al Umma Park Competition

Date: 2019

Type: Competition

Location: Baghdad, Iraq

Project Team: Steav Nissan, Darren Dharmadasa

The project questions the typical use of the park and seeks to expand on the already established public expectations, primarily related to relief, both in terms of quantity and quality that green space has to offer.

Throughout history traces of monumentality have littered Baghdad’s urban landscape, from the Mesopotamian Ziggurats, to the more recent trophies of triumph. Glistening in their singular geometric vision these monuments resonate a singular directive, often symbolising social, religious, or political agendas. Monuments have played a decisive role in reinforcing a narrative of the region, often claiming to represent the attitudes and cultures of the diverse social groups that make up the dense populace. Said narratives are often one-directional and incontestable, leaving little room for individuals or groups to negotiate the barrage of symbols spread across the landscape. The contention of the project is to accept the development Iraq has gone through over the last decades and the intrinsic role architecture has played in shaping the perception of Iraq locally and on a global scale.

We see this plurality as a defining factor of the region, lending to a colourful multitude of urban and non-urban conditions. In this context the park is tasked with providing the grounds for a shared space in which diversity of interaction and activity is to flourish, building on the existing opportunities presented within the dense urban environment.

Following this position, the project proposes to embrace, admittedly in an exaggerated manner, the potential to leverage the architectural monument and its distinct presence within the history of Iraq, as a potential spatial catalyst within the growing urban context. We identify potential in manipulating both the content and form of the monument, through a series of architectural gestures and arrangements.

The project questions the typical use of the park and seeks to expand on the already established public expectations, primarily related to relief, both in terms of quantity and quality that green space has to offer. To build on this, ideas of exploration, wander and journey were incorporated, to reformulate the typology of the park, not in opposition to the dense and often labelled ‘artificial’ landscape, but as an integrated entity that would selectively enhance and displace the social and cultural aspects thriving within the city. In doing so the park offers a set of possibilities within itself, free from its dependence as a counter space to the urban fabric.

The park aspires to create a platform from which to question and engage with the perceived identity of the monument, not as a static representation of ideology, but a continually developing representation of cultural identity and place, in the growing urban narrative of Iraq.