In 1955 the government of Iraq summoned to Baghdad architects like Alvar Aalto for the city's Cultural Centre, Frank Lloyd Wright for the Opera House, Le Corbusier for the Stadium, and subsequently Gropius for the University and Gio Ponti for the Development Board building, a block of government offices. The building is the work of the Pirelli team (Studio Ponti Fornaroli Rosselli, Studio Valtolina-Dell'Orto). And Ponti linked it with the Pirelli building: it was the first project afterward.  Check: Publix Weekly Ad and Kroger Weekly Ad.

It responds, Ponti stressed, to a solely climatic environmental situation the city's architectural past has been wiped out, and this was the reason for the enormous arcade that covers almost the entire area 16,000 square meters, providing shelter for all the external routes, for both vehicles and pedestrians, and the car park. Out of the arcade rise the two blocks administrative offices, executive offices in contact with one another. The facades, clad with gray-blue ceramic tiles, have movable aluminium brise-soleils.