Baghdad’s Forgotten Olympic Stadium: The Story of Le Corbusier’s Grand Design
Did you know that Baghdad has its very own Olympic stadium?
There is a special story behind this complex, one that dates back to the summer of 1955. During the 1950s, Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier was asked by the Iraqi government to draw up plans for an Olympic stadium set to be built in Baghdad as a potential site for the 1960 Summer Olympics.
The Baghdad Project
This was a special project to Le Corbusier because it gave him the opportunity to dive into the role of sport in urban planning. The plan was to build an entire Olympic complex that includes an Olympic stadium with 50,000 seats, a swimming pool with stands holding 5,000 seats, a 3,500-seat gymnasium and an open-air amphitheater with 3,000 seats.
The beauty of Le Corbusier’s work is that he likes to gather as much information as possible before diving into any project. That is why he did a deep study of stadiums and their functions, studying famous stadiums like the stands of Milan’s San Siro stadium, those of Maracaña in Rio or the Théâtre Antique in Orange.
To develop his stadiums, he focused on the audience that will fill up the space and made them the center of his architectural designs.
Today
Having died in 1965, Le Corbusier left behind a wealth of drawings and studies of the Olympic stadium to the Iraqi government. The issue was that during the 1960s, there was major political instability and so Calouste Gulbenkian who was financing the project ended up abandoning it.
Fast forward a couple of years later, at 1973, the project ended up getting picked up again and completed by 1980 after Georges-Marc Présenté continued its construction under the direction of architect Axel Mesny.
Still standing tall till this day, it may not have been used for the Olympics but it still does hold a special place in Iraq because of its special history.
