[3] His father, Kamil Chadirji, played a central role in Iraq's political life as the founder in 1946 and then president of the National Democratic Party.

[5] In 1952, after completing his graduate training, he returned to Baghdad and began working on what he called his "architectural experiments.

[7] In an interview, Chadirji explained his philosophy: From the very outset of my practice, I thought it imperative that, sooner or later, Iraq create for itself an architecture regional in character yet simultaneously modern, part of the current international avant-garde style.

Chadirji's early works were firmly grounded in the discourse being conducted by members of the Baghdad Modern Art Group,[10] including sculptors Jawad Saleem and Mohammed Ghani Hikmat, and artist-intellectual, Shakir Hassan Al Said.

His designs relied on abstracting the concepts and elements of traditional buildings, and reconstructing them in contemporary forms.

[17] However, after serving 20 months in the Abu Ghraib prison,[3] he was released when Saddam Hussein assumed power.

[19] While imprisoned, he wrote a book on architecture, Al Ukhaidir and the Crystal Palace, using materials that his wife had smuggled into Abu Ghraib.

In an interview with Ricardo Karam, Chadirji talked about his atheism; after studying philosophy with his wife Balqees Sharara, he came to the understanding that religions originated from magic.

His Monument to the Unknown Soldier (1959), described as a simple, symbolic, modernist structure, was removed from al-Fardous Square to make way for a statue of Sadam Hussein in the early 1980s.

The replacement statue was infamously toppled on 9 April 2003 in full view of the world, as global media filmed and photographed the destruction.