Baghdad, prairie style.

• Author: Freund, Charles Paul
• Position: Artifact

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a column by Adam Cohen revealing that an ambitious scheme for renewing Baghdad had been gathering dust for nearly 50 years, a plan drawn up by Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1957 the aged architect had been invited by the Iraqi government to design a city opera house. Typically, Wright wanted to site his proposed creation (above) on an island in the Tigris. "The island is yours," King Faisal II told him.

Wright also "designed an art gallery, botanical gardens, a 'grand bazaar,' and a university campus for the island," wrote Cohen, even though the project had been awarded to rival architect Walter Gropius.

As it happened, King Faisal's government was soon overthrown, and the island eventually became a Baathist resort. Yet Wright's unbuilt Baghdad retains a certain bizarre exuberance, its opera dome...