"Upper Baghdad"

How an architectural experiment, (Jackowski, Nannette, Ostos, Ricardo O.C.de) , beginning in 2004 until today (October 2007),  ‘magnify’ death and violence in Baghdad. [One of their projects]… is “the “Hanging Cemetery of Baghdad”, which they have continuously developed since 2004. In his introduction (to the book, October 2007), Peter Cook says that as an architect, one could essentially go into denial in view of the harrowing situation in Baghdad. NaJa and deOstos research the situation and react with the language of experimental architecture.”… see here. 
 

  But in a parallel course to the the speculative architectural experiment, here is a short evolving story of Baghdad violence . The dead toll of the inner violence between the opposing  Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and Islamic Army Al Qaeda clash south of Baghdad ( see here)  is at his lowest level since january 2006, see here.

  Here is a statistic of death by shooting, executions and bombs in Baghdad (2007), see here    On a larger scale, the “Iraq Body Count” site, has documented between the years 2003-2007, an average of 81000 civilian deaths from violence, see here .

  Morgue Data Show Increase In Sectarian Killings in Iraq (Baghdad), see here. 

  Here is a list of recent death events, until Tuesday 20 November: 25 dead, see here

  And what is NaJa’s and deOstos language of experimental architecture:
“Jannette Jackowski and Ricardo O. C. de Ostos once proposed a gigantic presence of a hanging funeral structure” that will hover above the war torn streets of Baghdad, floating unceasingly “from bright explosive mornings to airless night hours,” and lush with growth from an endless supply of dead Iraqis. ..”Day by day, nearly hourly, it updates its assimilating heavy stocks, a statistic of a hundred thousand Iraqi corpses or maybe twenty five thousand.”..”The Hanging Cemetery is a speculative project of architecture. Since its sketchy inception dating back to the summer of 2004 to today. We intend to explore what architecture could generate when faced with extreme cultural and political scenarious like the current crises in the Middle East. As with the rest of our work, the focus of the project is less in the form of a final object than as a script that it inserts into the city.”..”The main driving force was to consistently explore through an inventive design proposal the ambiguities that surround our current lives, not only as social producers of space but also as global spectators.”. see here. and here

The interweaving of the two stories is told by the following pictures, occurring on the same time scale. The architectural story as a printed book, located  in a London studio, and the other story located in deathly Baghdad.