Chadirji's early works were firmly grounded in the discourse being conducted by members of the Baghdad Modern Art Group,[8] 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.[9] However, Chadirji's critics have pointed out that although Chadirji was sympathetic to the group's aims, he was essentially a modernist at heart.[10]