Fine art: Iraq's Republican Palace offers wonders to the eye.

Some people might consider the Republican Palace, site of a U.S. embassy annex in Baghdad, to be overwrought, flowery and gaudy. Others see its inlaid Italian marble floors and intricately carved ceilings--three stories high in someplaces--as fine art. These ceilings and floors, found throughout the palace, are part of a building that one source termed "a neo-Babylonian affair built on a massive scale and composed of tremendous pillars, bulky double-leafed doors, soaring domes and a labyrinth of passages...."

The architectural concept for the palace was realized in the early 1950s. The ruling monarchy wanted a monumental palace located on a bend in the Tigris River and built to endure the harsh Iraqi climate. King Faisal II's father commissioned British architects to build the project, which would eventually encompass an area almost two miles long.

Local and foreign-trained Iraqis were responsible for structural, electrical and mechanical engineering. Limestone was imported from surrounding countries to build the palace. The imposing elements of the building's facade, as well as the massive pillars, were wrought from Lebanese stone, which was transported in immense blocks and broken down at the job site.

The British architects brought fine marble from Italy for the floors and walls and brought expert Italian craftsmen to inlay the stone. Before the marble was exported, every piece was cut to specifications in Italy. When the craftsmen traveled to Iraq, they simply had to assemble the stones on site. The project was completed in 1959.

Some of the palace's intricately carved ceilings are painted in pastels; others burst out of the lintels in primary colors. Most follow the precepts of Islamic art: Instead of images of animals, men or plants, the artists used geometric images that were intricately repeated.

The ceilings appear to have miles of intricate carvings. When looked at closely, they seem instead to be made of the dots and dashes of a Morse-code message. The symbols endlessly repeat themselves to form beautiful borders and intricate patterns.

The palace also has architectural anomalies. The room considered the palace's main rotunda has a ceiling that echoes the Pantheon in Rome, with its stacked carved limestone bricks. The ceiling of another large space, the grand ballroom, is a huge mural-covered dome. Images of missiles flying through an endless blue sky are intended to put viewers in awe of the power of the regime of the palace's former owner, Saddam Hussein.

Whether one looks down or up, the palace's architecture catches the eye. One day, it will be returned to the Iraqi people, and the embassy will move the offices now in the palace to a new facility, now under construction.

The author is chief of protocol at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.