Mohammed Saleh Makiya

Mohammed Saleh Makiya ( Arabic محمد صالح مكية, DMG Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Makkiya ; * January 14, 1914 in Baghdad , then Ottoman Empire ; † July 19, 2015 in London ) was an Iraqi architect and city ​​planner .

Education and career

After attending high school in Baghdad, Makiya studied at the Liverpool School of Architecture (graduated in 1941: BArch), Liverpool University (graduated in 1942: Diploma in civil engineering ) and at King's College in Cambridge (graduated in 1946: PhD). In 1946 he returned to Baghdad and founded his own architectural firm, Makiya Associates. From 1947 to 1953 he worked as an architect and urban planner in Stadtbauamt Baghdad. In 1956 he was a Fulbright scholar in the USA. On his return, he founded the first faculty of architecture in Iraq at the College of Engineering at Baghdad University in 1959whose dean he remained until 1968. In the late 1960s he left the university and from then on devoted himself exclusively to expanding his own architecture office. In 1967 he opened a branch in Manama , Bahrain , where he later relocated his headquarters. In 1971 he opened another branch in Muscat , Oman . The London office was added in 1974, followed by further branches in Kuwait, Doha , Abu Dhabi and Dubai . In 1975 his son Kanan Makiya (* 1949 in Baghdad) joined the company's London office.

plant

In the 1950s he initially only designed residential and commercial buildings; in the process he became aware of the rich heritage of Iraqi architecture. His first significant sacred building was the small Khulafa mosque in Baghdad (1960–1963). From the early 1970s he devoted himself to the urban development of Muscat and the restoration of the old buildings there. He was the architect for the Abu-Bakir-al-Siddiq Mosque in Doha (completed in 1978) and the Great Mosque of Kuwait (1976–1986), his largest building to date. Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein entrusted him in 1982 with the design of the monumental Baghdad State Mosque, which was supposed to offer space for 30,000 worshipers, and in 1984 with the design of a ceremonial square in Saddam's native city of Tikrit . Both projects were never realized. In 1993 he finally received - together with Quad Design - the contract to build the Great Sultan Qaboos Mosque in Oman.

Footnotes

1. ↑ رحيل المعماري العراقي الكبير المهندس محمد مكية In: Baghdad Times , July 20, 2015 (Arabic).
2. ↑ In Loving Memory of Mohamed Saleh Makiya. In: iraqfoundation.org , July 21, 2015 (English).
3. ^ ^{A b} Makiya, Kanan: Post-Islamic Classicism: A Visual Essay on the Architecture of Mohamed Makiya, London: Saqi, 1990, pp. 145-147, ISBN 0-86356-295-7 .

Web links

• 100th birthday ceremony (English)