HISTORIC ROLES OF CITIES: BAGHDAD

By

CASAS OSORIO, VALERIA SOFIA

Word Count: 400

An essay about the creation and evolution of Baghdad

SBE 221 | History of the Built Environment I

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

AUGUST 2021
The peculiar form of Baghdad was a tribute to the geometric teachings of Euclides,

whom Al-Mansur had studied and admired. To build Baghdad, he ordered to place

soaked cotton balls in naphtha (liquid petroleum) around the perimeter forming a

circumference. They went on fire to mark the position of the double outer walls. Al-

Mansur prayed to Allah, lay the first ceremonial brick, and ordered the workers to get

started on July 30, 762 AD. The massive brick walls, rising from the banks of the Tigris

and with a circumference of four miles, were the defining signature of the Round City

of Mansur. The outside wall was 24.4 meters high, with battlements over it and bastions

on either side. The border of the outer wall was surrounded by a deep moat, to protect

them. Architects and engineers, geologists, carpenters, metal workers, and workers were

all recruited from the Abbasid empire. They inspected, measured, and excavated the

foundations and then baked the bricks in the sun and the oven. Four equidistant gates

cut through the city's outer walls which was surrounded by merchant stores and bazaars.

The center was formed of a massive central enclosure (maybe 1981 meters in

circumference) and was empty, except for the two best buildings in the city: The big

Mezquita and the Golden Palace Gate of the Khalifa, a traditional Islamic expression of

the unity of material and spiritual authority. The Round City of Mansur was finished in

766 AD and devastated in the early 1870s when Midhat Pasha, the reformer Ottoman

ruler, tore down the old city walls to modernize them but never did. When the

Americans captured the region in 2003, it was transformed into the heavily defended

Green Zone, a bizarre 9.6 km square dystopia in which Iraqis were not welcome in their

city.

Personally, besides designing a city like Baghdad in response to a growing concern

from the main cities (Iraq, Basra, and Kufa), Al-Mansur wanted to do something

different from his ancestors. Building a city at the center of the Abbasid Empire, close
to trade routes, mild climate, and proximity to water was something new in that era. Its

peculiar form also follows the form of the domes at the Muslim Palaces. Thinking as a

conqueror, the walls at the perimeter of the city will make me feel safe, also it could

give me some time to prepare my army for battle.

Bibliography

Marozzi, J. (2016, March 16). Story of Cities #3: The birth of Baghdad was a landmark

for world civilization. The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/16/story-cities-day-3-baghdad-iraq-

world-civilisation.

YouTube. (2020). Medieval Baghdad - Greatest City In The World. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7DAEPX5Xbs.