Wright's Baghdad opera house and Gammage Auditorium: in search of regional modernity

32. "Wright in Baghdad," IT, May 21, 1957, 3. Jawdat was Iraqi ambassador to the United States and father of Harvard-trained architect Nizar Jawdat, who with his wife and classmate Ellen advocated inviting their mentor Gropius to Baghdad. See Reginald R. Isaacs, Gropius: Der Mensch und sein Werk, 2 vols. (Berlin: Gebruder Mann, 1983-84), vol. 2, 1040-47; idem, Gropius: The Illustrated Biographer of the Creator of the Bauhaus (Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1991), 280-82; John Harkness, ed., The Walter Gropius Archive, vol. 4, 1945-1969: The Work of the Architects Collaborative (New York: Garland, 1991), 189; Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 494-95 nn. 65, 67; and Marefat, "Wright's Baghdad," 188-89, 259 nn. 13-16. In November 1957 Gropius and his TAC colleague Robert McMillan surveyed the university's site "south of Baghdad on a bend in the Tigris River"; "Report on University Expected in June," IT, March 19, 1958, 3. Le Corbusier's talk was noted in "A Baghdad Diary," IT, November 8, 1957, 8. See "Architects Build a Modern Baghdad," Christian Science Monitor, April 2, 1958, sec. 2, 1; Levine, 383-93; and Marefat, 189-90. The four hundred members of the Society of Iraqi Engineers included resident foreigners. "A Baghdad Diary," IT, March 11, 1958, 8.

33. Wright, "A Journey to Baghdad," 50.

34. Wright, "Talk to Society of Engineers of Baghdad," May 22, 1957, transcript of tape recording, MS 2402.377 C, pp. 4, 6, FLWA. He said of his talk, "They were very appreciative and they printed it, recorded it and printed it and distributed it all through Iraq. So I'm on record there and I don't know what the State Department is going to do about it; they'll probably do something. But not openly"; Wright, "A Journey to Baghdad," 50.

35. Wright to the minister of development, January 24, 1957, 3, MS 1502.298.010, FLWA.

36. "Wright in Baghdad," IT, May 21, 1957, 3. In Baghdad, Wright, "A Journey to Baghdad," 51, recalled that "we met the Improvement Board and they are all fine fellows. Quite up to their jobs."

37. Wright, "A Journey to Baghdad," 51. Wright told the Iraqi engineers, "after all, you too, Baghdad are a democracy. Kingdoms in the world have come to the point--as in England--where royalty is extremely decorative and still valuable to culture and should now be that asset to the people of our great Middle East. But Democracy is here working as the true Reality to cherish the great Present. You are each 'his real Majesty the Baghdad citizen' just as we in the United States are 'his Majesty the American citizen'"; Wright, "Talk to Society of Architects and Engineers of Baghdad," MS 2402.377 B, p. 22, FLWA. On this point, see also Levine, Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, 404. Eleven days earlier, Wright had said of the Arizona State Capitol project, "I could stand here decorated like a Russian general with testimonials from nearly every country, in recognition of the fact that my architectural principles command unique respect in nearly every country of the world; yet America is the slowest to understand them"; quoted in Cutts, "Wright Explains Oasis Theme."