Al-Shaheed Monument and Museum

Baghdad, Iraq

A national memorial in honor of Iraqi war heroes on a site comprising green areas, a children's playground, car parks, walkways and bridges, and a lake. It was built by the Mitsubishi Corporation between 1981 and 1983 to the specifications of Ove Arup and Partners. The idea was conceived by Iraqi artist Ismail Fattah al-Turk and aided by architects from the Baghdad School of Architecture. Planned and built under Saddam Hussein, the monument was originally intended to commemorate the fallen Iraqi soldiers of the Iran-Iraq War. It is located on the east side of the Tigris River directly west of the Army Canal (Qanat al-Jaish).

Amid the memorial’s lake is an island of two circular platforms - one above the other - on which the monument is set. The monument is a 40m shell split in two and slid to form an inverted and disjoined S in plan. Inside one of the dome shells is a circular water pool that cascades its contents to the courtyard below. The structure built on two levels under the platform comprises a museum, library, cafeteria, lecture hall, exhibition gallery, and support facilities. The shells are constructed of a galvanized steel frame with glazed ceramic tile cladding pre-cast in carbon fiber reinforced concrete.