The Architect Mohamed Makiya

Mohamed Makiya, the architect

Mohamed Makiya, a renowned Iraqi architect, was born in Baghdad in 1914. He graduated in 1941 with a degree in civil design from the School of Architecture at the University of Liverpool. In 1946, he obtained a doctorate from King's College, University of Cambridge, with a thesis entitled “The Influence of Climate on Architecture in the Mediterranean Region.”

The Makiya Associates Foundation

Returning to Baghdad in the late 1940s, he founded Makiya Associates, whose operations were transferred to Bahrain in 1971, with branches in most capitals of the Gulf States. In 1959, he created the first department of architecture in Iraq at the University of Baghdad, where he remained dean until 1968. His first major achievement was the al-Khulafa Mosque in Baghdad, built between 1960 and 1963, through which he developed his vision of religious architecture, inspired by the Abbasid monuments of the 9th century.

The Kufa Gallery in London

In the early 1970s, he moved to London where he established the Kufa Gallery to promote Iraqi and Arab culture through exhibitions and debates open to intellectuals of all political persuasions. He died in London in 2015 at the age of 101.