Al Ani worked for the Iraqi Oil Company during the fifties, sixties and seventies. During the presentation, the Spanish architect and curator will take a look back at Latif Al Ani’s life and work, especially during the decades when the country was moving ahead towards a future of development and modernity as a result of the discovery of oil. Latif Al Ani’s life story runs parallel to some of the most relevant events in the history of Iraq and the Middle East and is closely tied to a certain image of the country and the urban and architectural development that took place there during those years.

Pedro Azara is highly knowledgeable about the history of Iraq and its architecture in ancient, modern and contemporary times. In addition to curating the exhibition that Casa Árabe is now presenting, he was also the curator of the exhibition “Mirage City: Baghdad, from Wright to Venturi,” dedicated to architectural projects in Baghdad throughout the 20th century, which was presented by Casa Árabe in 2009 and has now come to light again at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha as part of the activities that the entity Qatar Creates has set up in conjunction with football’s World Cup.

Pedro Azara is a professor at Barcelona Higher Technical School of Architecture. He has participated in missions of the Institut del Pròxim Orient Antic (IPOA, Barcelona) and the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR, Chicago). He co-organized the fifty-first Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale and takes part in the congresses by the ASOR and ICAANE (International Colloquium of Archeology of the Ancient Near East), along with Marc Marín. He has directed exhibitions such as: “Mirage City: Baghdad, from Wright to Venturi” (Casa Árabe, Centre for Architecture, Society of Architects, and Riwaq Biennial, Madrid, New York, Boston and Ramallah, 2008-2012); “Before the Flood: Mesopotamia from 3500-2100 BC” (Caixaforum, Madrid and Barcelona); and “Past as Present: Archeology and Aesthetics” (ISAW, New York, 2015). He authored: La reconstrucción del Edén. Mito y arquitectura en Oriente (The Reconstruction of Eden: Myth and Architecture in the Orient, Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 2010); and Piedra angular. El nacimiento de la ciudad en Sumeria (Cornerstone: Birth of the city in Sumer, Tenov, Barcelona, 2012). With Pedro García del Barrio and AV62Arquitectos, he won the competition for the remodeling of the Sunni neighborhood of Adhimiya in Baghdad (2013), and he took part in the PRICC1 Congress (Baghdad, 2009) for the preservation of architectural heritage in Iraq.