 Al-Faw Presidential Palace
This is where I work—while originally it was a beautiful building, with our occupation, it has been turned into a cubicle farm, not unlike offices any where else in the world.
Al-Faw was one of eight presidential palaces used for hunting and recreation by Baathist party members, Saddam Hussein and his family. Both sons, U’day and Qu’say had villas on the artificial lake. There were houseboats to move them around; often they would cruise the lake and take tea at one of the artificial islands.
The palace was built to commemorate the sacrifices made by the Iraqi Army during the Iran-Iraq War in regaining the Al-Faw peninsula, located in southern Iraq.
The palace is 450,000 sq. ft with 62 rooms and 29 bathrooms. The bathrooms are elaborate rooms with gilded metal work and marble façade. The palace is made primarily of marble, glass, wood, plastic and brass. Many of the banisters are gypsum and not carved marble. The Arabic script is made to look like gold but is actually gilded brass. The marble and locks are Italian. Many of the apparently glass pieces are actually plastic or plastic and intermittent glass.
The ceiling of the rotunda – art work – is actually Moroccan-formed plaster cast frescos secured to the ceiling. |