The Politics of Architecture in Iran by Amanda Gladysz

The Politics of Architecture in Iran

Amanda Gladysz

ARCH 3850-03 Prof. Jennifer Gaugler Spring 2019

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Introduction At the turn of the twentieth century, Iran was mostly known by foreigners to be a land of oil and Persian carpets. Once World War I began in 1914, the British-owned petroleum pools in Iran’s Persian Gulf access cities started to fuel the Royal Navy.1 The Iranian monarch was accepting royalties, and Reza Khan, an officer, felt it was time to overthrow the current monarch for the greater good of Persia.2 In 1925, Reza Khan became the Shah of Iran thereby establishing the Pahlavi dynasty. It was during Reza Shah’s reign that he asked the world to start calling Persia by the name of Iran, and the people of Iran as Iranians instead of Persians.3 When World War II began, the Allied Powers stormed and occupied Iran. There was mounting fear in the nation, and a large amount of Tehran’s population ran from the city since Russia moved to occupy it.4 Reza Shah faced forced abdication by the Allied Powers once the Russians finally invaded Tehran, and Reza Shah’s son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was forced to take over as leader of Iran.5 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi would continue to serve as Shah of Iran until the Iranian Revolution. Tehran became the face of a new Iran, and buildings started to quickly be erected under the direction of the government.6 In modernizing Iran, there was a shift in focus towards the social aspect of architecture with the building of new museums. Many architects were being imported from western nations to modernize the capital creating a mixture of French education and Iranian architecture.7 Halfway through the century there was an emergence in Iranian born architects heading government 1

Douglas Little. “Frenemies: Iran and America since 1900.” Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective 4, no. 8 (May 2011). http://origins.osu.edu/article/frenemies-iran-and-america-1900 2 Little, “Frenemies.” 3 Little, “Frenemies.” 4 Little, “Frenemies.” 5 Little, “Frenemies.” 6 Ali Mozaffari. “Modernity and Identity: The National Museum of Iran.” In Museum Revolutions, edited by Simon Knell, Suzanne MacLeod and Sheila Watson. London: Routledge, 2007. https://www.academia.edu/ 1922865/Modernity_and_Identity_the_National_Museum_of_Iran 7 Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.”

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commissions, and architecture in Iran became more Western while nodding to the architectural past of Iran. In modernizing, the public felt they needed a modern government and overthrew the monarchy in 1979 after 2,500 years of rule.8 The new government shifted Iran away from Western modernization following the Iran-Iraq War and their new stance had a profound change on modern architecture in Iran. The oil industry and the wars through the twentieth century made it difficult to find a national identity that could bring Iranians together under their governing monarch. Iranians made small strides towards finding an identity, large in part, with the modernization of Tehran. In 1937 the first museum in all of Iran, the Iran Bastan Museum, opened its doors to the public.9 Before this museum, artifacts were only for the wealthy, and were displayed within their estates. Iranians could finally acknowledge and understand their rich history.

Iran Bastan Museum Following the unforeseen change in government in the early twentieth century, Tehran’s urban landscape shifted with a new focus on the public. Reza Shah, the second to last Shah of Iran, was eight years into his sixteen-year reign and was creating rapid urban change and modernization to a traditional Iranian city.10 Tehran, the capital of Iran, was getting a new city grid, new traffic circles, new squares, and most importantly, new public programs.11 Entire squares of new building were going up, each with a connection to one another in their meaning. These buildings were all modernistic in their

Marc Jourdier. "Tehran Museum Lionizes 1980s War in Which Iran Took on 'Whole World'." Times of Israel, August 18, 2018. https://www.timesofisrael.com/tehran-museum-lionizes-war-in-which-iran-took-on-whole-world/. 9 Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.” 10 Mina Marefat. “Building to Power: Architecture of Tehran 1921-1941.” PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988. http://ezproxywit.flo.org/login?url= https://search.ebscohost.com/dspace.mit.edu.1721.1.14535&site 11 Marefat, “Building Power.”

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programming, spirit, and connection to one another as well as with the public.12 One building that stands out for being especially modernistic is the Iran Bastan Museum. The Iran Bastan Museum, completed in 1936, sits in the city center of Tehran, Iran in a public square, which was conceived as a government complex (Figures 1-4).13 Most of the square is gated, but mostly to allow pedestrian traffic at certain times of the day. This area, Masq Square, has multiple government institutions, banks and museums, as well as wide boulevards on the central axis that allow pedestrians to walk freely inside the complex, and outside the border of the square (Figure 5).14 Squares and boulevards this public to common people of Iran weren’t common in the time of construction of the Bastan Museum.15 The architect of the building, Andre Godard, was in this sense able to achieve national modernity. Andre Godard designed the museum with some assistance from fellow French architect and archeologist Maxime Siroux. Godard studied archaeology and focused in on Middle Eastern regions like Iran for his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.16 After he finished his schooling, he traveled through Iran excavating and exploring, and soon got a position as an architect at the French Archeological Delegation. This group was a French monopoly studying archeology based in the region of Afghanistan.17 The group was excavating Persian sites when it was stopped by Reza Shah after problems with their Persian/French antiquities treaty in terms of poor excavation techniques and lack of promotion of Persian culture, which ended with half of all artifacts found going to the future Iran Bastan

Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.” Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.” 14 Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.” 15 Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.” 16 Pooya Zargaran. “History of Restoration in Iran: Origins and Developments from 1900 to 1978,” 2014. http://ezproxywit.flo.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/amsdottorato.cib.unibo.it.6363 17 Pooya Zargaran. “History of Restoration in Iran: Origins and Developments from 1900 to 1978.” PhD diss., University of Bologna, 2014. http://ezproxywit.flo.org/login? url=https://search.ebscohost.com/amsdottorato.cib.unibo.it.6363 13

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Museum, and half to the Louvre.18 When the group was disbanded, Reza Shah’s government created the Archeological Services of Iran and appointed Andre Godard as director.19 His first task was to design the first modern archeological museum for Iran. Godard was instructed by Reza Shah to showcase Iran’s new national identity in the museum. This idea of national identity was showcased, but more importantly, Godard demonstrated public identity and cultural heritage in the design. He was projecting this architecture for the public, and this was the first time that the general public could study these artifacts in glass surroundings in a museum.20 It was a modern machine in its ideas of drastically shifting cultural heritage, all through the merging of foreign ideas with Islamic tradition to create a national modernism. The museum’s exterior is an amalgam of queues from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts education of Godard and the past architecture of the Persian Islamic Era. Some ideas that Godard brought with him from his schooling were that of putting an iron gate in the front of the building with an adjoining large front garden, the creation of a pavilion on either side of the façade, and an axial symmetry to name a few (Figure 6). Interestingly, the front façade of the building is on the shorter end of the building, therefore not accentuating the horizontality of the building. If done on the long face of the building, this museum would have had a certain monumentality to it that it certainly does not have. In the same sense, the museum has simple columns on the front façade that span the height of it. The traditional architecture of Godard’s amalgam prescribe columns that break up a façade, the again emphasize the horizontality of the structure. Godard’s columns instead span nearly the entire height of the building, thereby accentuating the verticality. Godard presents the ideas of screens, and vents based on windcatchers on the façade,

Zargaran, “History of Restoration in Iran.” Zargaran, “History of Restoration in Iran.” 20 Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.” 19

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but the biggest Persian influence on the façade is the replication of the Taq-i Kisra, a vaulted arch in Ctesiphon (modern day Afghanistan) (Figures 7-8).21 Of all the influences Godard could have chosen to emulate, he chose a piece of advanced technique and technology utilization in the Pre-Islamic time period that showcases the achievements of Iran’s people. The building has a flat roofline and is simplistic in form. Inside, there is an addition of program from the regular exhibit halls and auxiliary spaces in the form of a library and research wing which showed the desire for advancement at the time.22 There is also an open plan surrounding the two courtyard spaces (Figure 9). This is an interesting dynamic where the transition from the façade, to the simple interior, to the courtyard shows the progression towards more modernist ideology (Figure 10). At the time in Tehran’s history when they were trying to find an identity, structures started to get built under government command such as the National Bank and the National library. The Iran Bastan Museum, however, did something completely different in not being initially launched as the National Museum of Iran. It was firmly called the Iran Bastan Museum, which meant the ancient museum of Iran.23 This provided a reminder of pre-islamic history and the progression of heritage for coming years. This building was seen by the people of Iran as a mixture of their ideas of forward thinking on a cultural and social level that was simply housed within a shell that showcased the political aspirations of the Pahlavi government. The Iran Bastan Museum is a piece of architecture that serves as a complex, modern translation of the Islamic history of Iran.

Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.” Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.” 23 Zargaran, “History of Restoration in Iran.” 22

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Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art Several decades after the Iran Bastan Museum was built, attitudes towards what modernity should look like in Iran had begun to change. While the last Pahlavi Shah of Iran was squandering newfound wealth from the country’s oil industry on events of self-admiration, Farah Pahlavi, the Empress of Iran, was instead using the new-found wealth to secure multiple pieces of modernist artwork. Considering the time period in Iran and the expectations of her gender and position, Pahlavi stood out as a figure of progression having had pursued an architectural education that sparked her interest in western fashion and modern artwork (Figure 11).24 In pursuing an art collection, Pahlavi consulted her cousin Kamran Diba, a trained architect and self-proclaimed modernist, to help her handpick the pieces.25 This newly acquired collection needed a new museum to reflect, for the first time in Iran, a mixture of Iranian and western works of art. The new museum would become a cultural symbol while also expressing new, modern elements, and it would be called the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Diba, the building’s architect, was born in Tehran and went to train as both an architect and sociologist at Howard University in Washington, DC.26 Within a year of Diba returning to Tehran after his schooling, he had worked his way up to President of an architectural and engineering firm operating in Iran. Working as both architect and planner in major public sector projects through the country, Diba produced mostly masterplans, university buildings, and mosques.27 One of Diba’s most well-known works is the masterplan of Shushtar New Town. The project, which received the Aga Khan

Reza Shirazi. Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in Iran: Tradition, Modernity, and the Production of Space-in-between. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2018. 25 Shirazi, Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in Iran. 26 Hasan-Uddin Khan. 2003 "Diba, Kamran." Grove Art Online. 13 Mar. 2019. http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao- 9781884446054-e-7000022648. 27 Khan, “Diba, Kamran.”

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Award for Architecture in 1986, was constructed in a way that alluded to the traditional symbols of ancient Iranian architecture, though almost exclusively using modern architectural elements.28 Two years after starting Shushtar New Town, Diba chose to implement his modern ideas in a similar way by respecting traditional Iranian composition in his design for the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Branching away from more traditional placement of public Iranian buildings, the museum, completed in 1977, is placed on the western edge of Laleh Park in Tehran (Figures 3 & 12). The site of the museum encompasses both the building and its sculpture garden (Figure 13). Diba rotated the building and set it to the side of the site as to not make a monumental, axial building. The forty-fivedegree angle of the building on site is interesting, because it aligns more strongly to the public at street-side and almost not at all to the park, but also respects the vegetation on which it is placed by sloping the rooflines downward towards the open sculpture garden to the north (Figures 14).29 This sloping is also reminiscent of the ancient cities of Iran that border the desert and slope downward towards edge of the desert (Figure 15). Diba also hinted at these ancient cities by using the modern element of the north-facing skylight in a way that symbolizes badgirs, which are Iranian wind catchers used for building ventilation.30 Using this element in his design gave Diba the power to create varying levels of restrained sight and lighting. It is interesting that Diba intends to make social connections through the composition of the museum, but then isolates it from the rest of the museums in the park as not to create connections among users in an urban setting. To further this segmentation, Diba does not allow for direct entrance towards the sculpture garden once inside the museum walls. Also, the

Khan, “Diba, Kamran.” John Dixon. 1978. “Cultural Hybrid; Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.” Progressive Architecture 59 (May): 68–71. 30 Shirazi, Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in Iran. 29

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way that the sculpture garden is composed is by placing sculptures in a cleared out flat of green space that is uninviting to visitors and serves more as a cleared view towards the museum rather than a place to be. The composition of the building is purposely broken up for desired scale but finds unity in the repetition of similar elements. The exterior materiality of the building is a mixture of stone, glass, concrete, and copper.31 The concrete that shapes the light wells mixed with the stone base makes the building feel heavy and strong. In this sense, the solid walls create curiosity for the hidden interior within the façade. The roof of the building is accessible and starts to intertwine the exterior and interior spaces creating a modern landscape defined by cultural tradition (Figure 16). Like the exterior modernism implemented by Diba, the museum’s interior space starts to shift away from traditional Iranian museums in its diversity of programmatic spaces such as a small cinema, library, educational space, and café, but the main path of movement is through a set of galleries organized around a central courtyard (Figure 17).32 The courtyard itself is somewhat segmented, but also interesting compared to the traditional courtyard in that it has an unordinary shape defined by the adjoining galleries (Figure 18). This composition of space surrounding the courtyard directs movement forward and ensures complete viewing of all galleries in sequence. The main entry to the museum leads straight into the first gallery, which also features a ramp that leads to the lower level (Figure 19). This is another point in the design where one can see Diba’s interplay of tradition and modern elements of the ramp holding importance and functionality. This space, while not being centrally located, serves as the central architectural element of the museum, showing its contrast and importance from the rest of the museum through its presence as a void space flooded by light coming

Kambiz Navai. 2010. “An Architectural Analysis: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran, Iran.” ArchNet - IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research 4 (1): 194–207. https://archnet.org/publications/5314 32 Navai, “An Architectural Analysis.”

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from the four main skylights (Figures 20-21).33 The galleries that follow are attached to one another leading back to the first gallery and incorporate the skylights as well (Figure 22). The first art installation most people see when they enter through this ramped gallery space is a reflecting pool located centrally on the lower level. This pool demonstrates the modern identity of Iran at the time as a flourishing new nation rich from oil. The installation, filled with oil, was built into the museum for its inauguration to showcase the nation’s success in its new identity.34 Diba did not rely on tradition to create this museum, but instead merely used Iranian culture as a context for finding relevant dialogue to shape his modernist ideas. For instance, Diba took a modern skylight, though this looks nothing like an Iranian windcatcher, and placed it in a precise order that reminds the Iranians of their architectural past (Figure 23). He started with the modern elements he had studied through his western education, and then related the proportions of these elements to traditional Iranian elements, that he then implemented in such a way that alludes to a cultural awareness. Through this, Diba was able to achieve his modernist ambitions while also creating a progressive, ambiguous symbol of identity that connects with the Iranian people.

Museum of the Islamic Revolution & the Holy Defense Several decades after the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art was built, government attitudes towards the West changed and new architecture started to reflect these attitudes. Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, tensions were high between Iran and Iraq (Figure 24). The Iraqis were becoming empowered by the Iranian Revolution, and Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s ruler, was feeling

33 34

Dixon, “Cultural Hybrid; Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.” Navai, “An Architectural Analysis.”

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distressed.35 Hussein feared that his people would rebel against him following the Iranian Revolution, so he took the opportunity to calm the possibility of rebellion as well as attempt to take over control of the Shatt Al-Arab waterway to become the dominating power in the region by starting a war with Iran.36 In late September 1980 Iraq invaded Iran by surprise attacking Iranian air bases as to delay retaliation, but two years into the war Iran had regained its lost ground and they were at a point where they could have put an end to the war (Figure 25).37 Instead, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ruhollah Khomeini, who came into power after leading the Iranian Revolution, wanted to overthrow Hussein and would not accept any offers of peace.38 This war would span over the course of eight years, with both sides claiming victory after a stalemate. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, with nothing being gained.39 Since the war, multiple museums have been erected in Iran to commemorate the war and its martyrs. The largest of the commemorative museums erected in the country is in one of Tehran’s cultural districts. The Museum of the Islamic Revolution and Holy Defense gives insight to how the Iranians view the Iran-Iraq war, and how important the war is to their culture. A competition was held by the Tehran municipality in 2005 for the new Holy Defense Museum to be set in Tehran to show the resiliency that the city held during the Tehran bombings of the Iran-Iraq war.40 The winner of the competition was selected as Barsian Shaar Consulting Engineers, with the design led by Jila Norouzi.41 Norouzi was born in Iran and studied architecture at the University of

Britannica Library, s.v. "Iran-Iraq War," accessed April 2, 2019, https://library.eb.com/levels /referencecenter/article/Iran-Iraq-War/42742. 36 Britannica Library, "Iran-Iraq War." 37 Britannica Library, "Iran-Iraq War." 38 Britannica Library, "Iran-Iraq War." 39 Britannica Library, "Iran-Iraq War." 40 Jourdier, “Tehran Museum.” 41 Caoi.ir. "Holy Defense Garden-Museum." Contemporary Architecture of Iran, last modified April 15, 2016. http://www.caoi.ir/en/projects/item/759-holy-defense-garden-museum.html.

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Tehran. She worked at numerous firms before heading Barsian Shaar in 2002 as principal architect.42 Norouzi has also worked as an instructor at the Islamic Azad University in the art and architecture department for almost twenty years, intermixing research in the Tehran area with her own professional work. She has won multiple architectural competitions in Tehran, and most of her work is erected within the city boundaries.43 Being an Iranian, Norouzi’s ideas for the sequencing and concept behind the museum speak to the feelings of most Iranians. Iranians see themselves as the peaceful nation that became victim to unwarranted attacks from Iraq that worsened with dislike coming from mostly Western nations and these ideas can be felt through the museum. The museum, which was completed in 2010, is in the Abbas Abad district in Tehran which is a dedicated cultural and entertainment center that contains multiple museums, shops, and other forms of entertainment (Figures 3 & 26). The landscape surrounding the museum is shaped to provide easy access and connect transit lines surrounding the site (Figure 27).44 While the intent of the museum is to blend in, it also aims to stand out, and it does this with its metallic roof structure standing alone from the rest of the green landscape and other architectural structures that surround it. It also stands out in its larger context of the district it is in. The museum has significant meaning and is meant to transport people back to what happened in Iran, and then pay respects to all the martyrs, but it is strange that the museum is surrounded by shops, university, and even a waterpark. There is a missed chance to give the building higher significance and attachment that isn’t achieved through the large amount of space the city chose to use for the structure but achieved instead through more significant placement in a different district within Tehran.

Caoi.ir, “Holy Defense Garden-Museum.” Caoi.ir, “Holy Defense Garden-Museum.” 44 Caoi.ir, “Holy Defense Garden-Museum.” 43

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The concept for the shape of the museum comes from the configuration of a typical army tent.45 The building itself is low and elongated to match the idea of the army tent in blending into its surroundings and uses this shape to create views to the surrounding natural landscape features (Figure 28). The roof of the structure, clad in all aluminum, is made of several folds to mimic as well as connect the hills of the site.46 The landscape surrounding the museum is home to many weapons such as tanks and missiles to boast the achievements of the Iranian military (Figure 29). There is a sheltered exterior performance space that resulted from creating a void in the building’s form, and the main entry for the museum becomes a path formed from creating another void of sheltered exterior space around an interior core (Figures 30-31). The structure of the building makes it possible to have fluid spaces within to create a chain of specific gallery spaces (Figure 32). The main interior space of the museum is made up of a sequence of exhibition halls all staggered at different levels (Figures 3335). Each exhibition space is connected linearly by a continuous slope while the other spaces such as the library, educational space and office space connect to a below ground atrium (Figure 36).47 The exhibition spaces show the sequence of how the war started, how the people of Iran reacted, and how it ended according to Iranians. Although the museum shows how the Iranians felt and is local in meaning, it is architecturally international. The interior spaces are open and fluid, and although geometric in form, the spaces have long and narrow qualities consistent with rectilinear forms. The plain surfaces within the museum are a result of a glass and steel construction that cantilevers the aluminum clad roof over the glass exterior. The building attempts to fit into its landscape, and become a landmark piece of architecture, but it does not architecturally reflect the dialogue being had in Iran. It

Caoi.ir, “Holy Defense Garden-Museum.” Caoi.ir, “Holy Defense Garden-Museum.” 47 Caoi.ir, “Holy Defense Garden-Museum.” 46

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does not utilize local building materials, react to regional climate, or architecturally hold a cultural significance to the people of Iran successfully. The museum was inaugurated in 2011 and since then, the Tehran government hosts national events and exhibitions at the museum regularly. The museum itself is a recount of history as it happened in the eyes of the Iranians, and as such, the imagery and words chosen in some instances become political. The Iranians refer to the war as the Sacred Defense, with an emphasis on the defense. Iran’s projected image is one of innocence, and the exhibits in the museum have audio and video that tells visitors of the West’s undying support for Hussein’s regime, and how the Western media began to serve as a stage for the government of Iraq.48 The Iranians are clear in their stance of what happened to them in this war and how no one backed them while they were on the defensive, but there is absolutely no mention of the Israeli support that Iran received during the war, and there are even small instances of hate towards Israel within the museum such as a trash can on the museum’s site that degrades the Star of David and implies war with strategic missile placement behind the trash can that implies power over the Israeli state (Figure 37).49 In the same propagandistic sense of denying aid from Israel, there is a denial of other facts of the war such as U.S. aid through the Iran-Contra deal, and other false representations of war-time media coverage (Figure 38).50 There is this sort of fundamental issue at the root of the museum that explains why it may feel out of place. This may be because the museum itself is a representation of many experiences through a sensitive revolution and war, and to create an amalgam of experiences designated by the government in one enclosed area in the capital city defines how the experience should be remembered. The experience that the sequence

Jourdier, “Tehran Museum.” Jourdier, “Tehran Museum.” 50 Jourdier, “Tehran Museum.” 49

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and digital age technology gives the museum visitors is that Iran was peaceful and defensive, and there were many martyrs that deserve remembrance, but also that in the present day there is a lot of hate, aggression and resentment. Framing the Iranian past in an aggressive way in the present must, in effect, alter the way that culture connects Iranian people together. If the museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architectural idea was to remember the Iran-Iraq war as a time of resiliency and connectivity between the Iranian people, then it is unclear why the design team created an out of place building segmented from the everyday people of Tehran that promotes the achievements of the Iranian military at the expense of promoting hatred as a way to connect its people.

Political Shift: Iranian Revolution & Iran-Iraq War Following the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War, the nature of politics in Iran shifted. There was no longer a desire to modernize the city of Tehran through Western ideas. The Holy Defense Museum is an example of how this political shift started to restrict the Iranian people in terms of freedom. The Iranians were forced to believe what their government presented to them, and they are currently forced to experience the sequenced linearity in the Holy Defense Museum the way the government continually sees fit. Alternately, the first two case studies presented, the Iran Bastan Museum and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, are examples of how the political shift in the nation influenced the buildings in Iran that were already erected before the wars.

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Iran Bastan Museum: Post-War Since the completion of the museum in 1936, it has undergone extensive preservation measures.51 Though there have been efforts to preserve the building by the Iranian government, the focus of the site has slowly shifted away from the original Bastan museum. Because the building currently lacks necessary qualities needed to preserve many artifacts, the building can no longer house the extensive collection of artifacts on its own.52 The building originally created for the Ethnography Museum adjacent to the Bastan Museum was altered and refurbished to be part of the National Museum of Iran.53 The addition of a newer building was important to the Iranians because after the Iranian revolution, they were trying to separate their Pre-Islamic past from their current Islamic past. The new building became the Islamic Era wing of the museum, while the original Bastan museum became the pre-Islamic Era wing.54 The new building which stands much taller than the original museum and houses a far more recent collection of artifacts, is a testament to how far the Iranians have come as a people to give prominence to their current history (Figure 39).

Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art: Post-War Having been completed only a year before the Iranian Revolution, the museum’s focus shifted shortly after its creation. At the time of its inception, the museum planned to mostly showcase its newly acquired modern works of art. After the revolution occurred, Western art was no longer approved of by the government and all the most famous modern art works in the entire world became hidden in the vault under the museum where they still sit until this day due to the same government

Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.” Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.” 53 Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.” 54 Mozaffari, “Modernity and Identity.” 52

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ideals that still exist in Iran.55 Since then, having faced problematic issues over time, the museum closed its doors in early 2018 for renovation and has delayed its reopening to later this year (Figure 40).56 The museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s renovation team has been working closely with Diba to renovate and reconstruct the building in a way that must maintain and respect the critical regionalism found through Dibaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s modernist ideas in an Iranian context. Although having been renovated several times before, the building needed a complete addition this time due to dampness and light conditions harmful to the art collections, and the museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s increased need for a larger vault space as the design of the museum was intended to hold significantly less artwork than it currently has. In order to restore the museum in its entirety, the renovation team asked the artist of the reflecting oil pool to restore the art installation he had created decades before to strengthen the symbolism of oil in Tehran (Figure 41). The delay in opening the museum comes from a slew of financial difficulties that arise from the unfavorable feelings from the government in reopening a building that popularizes Western culture.

Conclusion The museum became an important building typology that would become a machine for change in the nation of Iran. With every shift in power, the architecture and meaning of these buildings had to and were able to transform to reflect the attitudes of Iran and its people. Now, Iran continues to redefine their identity, and make their current attitudes apparent in the built environment, especially within their capital city of Tehran. Over the past century, Iran has cycled through different approaches to define what modernity looks like in their nation. Though there was a period of Western education defining their entire

55 56

Shirazi, Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in Iran Shirazi, Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in Iran

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urban landscape, and a more current period of renouncing Western ideologies altogether, Iranians have maintained an identity of unity founded by the initial shift towards a more public architecture.

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Bibliography Britannica Library, s.v. "Iran-Iraq War," accessed April 4, 2019, https://library.eb.com/levels/ referencecenter/article/Iran-Iraq-War/42742. Caoi.ir. "Holy Defense Garden-Museum." Contemporary Architecture of Iran, last modified April 15, 2016. http://www.caoi.ir/en/projects/item/759-holy-defense-gardenmuseum.html. Dixon, John. 1978. “Cultural Hybrid; Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.” Progressive Architecture 59 (May): 68–71. Jourdier, Marc. "Tehran Museum Lionizes 1980s War in Which Iran Took on 'Whole World'." Times of Israel, August 18, 2018. https://www.timesofisrael.com/tehran-museumlionizes-war-in-which-iran-took-on-whole-world/. Khan, Hasan-Uddin. 2003 "Diba, Kamran." Grove Art Online. 13 Mar. 2019. http://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/o ao-9781884446054-e-7000022648. Little, Douglas. “Frenemies: Iran and America since 1900.” Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective 4, no. 8 (May 2011). http://origins.osu.edu/article/frenemies-iran-and-america1900 Marefat, Mina. “Building to Power: Architecture of Tehran 1921-1941.” PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988. http://ezproxywit.flo.org/login?url= https://search.ebscohost.com/dspace.mit.edu.1721.1.14535&site Mozaffari, Ali. “Modernity and Identity: The National Museum of Iran.” In Museum Revolutions, edited by Simon Knell, Suzanne MacLeod and Sheila Watson. London: Routledge, 2007. https:// www.academia.edu/1922865/Modernity_and_Identity_the_National_Museum_of_Iran Navai, Kambiz. 2010. “An Architectural Analysis: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran, Iran.” ArchNet - IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research 4 (1): 194–207. https://archnet.org/publications/5314 Shirazi, M. Reza. Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in Iran: Tradition, Modernity, and the Production of Space-in-between. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2018. Zargaran, Pooya. “History of Restoration in Iran: Origins and Developments from 1900 to 1978.” PhD diss., University of Bologna, 2014. http://ezproxywit.flo.org/login? url=https://search.ebscohost.com/amsdottorato.cib.unibo.it.6363

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Figures

Figure 1: Iran in context

Figure 2: Tehran in context

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Figure 3: Case studies in context of Tehran

Figure 4: Iran Bastan Museum in dense urban context

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Figure 5: Iran Bastan Museum in context of government plaza

Figure 6: Iran Bastan Museum scale model

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Figure 7: Iran Bastan Museum exterior faรงade

Figure 8: Iran Bastan Museum faรงade in comparison to ancient Iranian architecture

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Figure 9: Iran Bastan Museum plan

Figure 10: Iran Bastan Museum exhibit space

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Figure 11: Farah Pahlavi, modern empress

Figure 12: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in context of public park

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Figure 13: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art positioned in site

Figure 14: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art relation to surroundings

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Figure 15: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art sloping similarly to desert fringed Iranian cities

Figure 16: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art exterior connection through inhabitable roof

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Figure 17: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art first (left) and second (right) level plans

Figure 18: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art interior courtyard space

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Figure 19: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art axonometric main level gallery connections

Figure 20: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art voided ramp space serves as main gallery

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Figure 21: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art skylight composition

Figure 22: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art skylights in gallery spaces

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Figure 23: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art composition like desert fringed Iranian cities

Figure 24: Iranians storm Tehran in Iranian Revolution

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Figure 25: Iraq attacks Iran by surprise in 1980

Figure 26: Holy Defense Museum in context of Tehran cultural district

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Figure 27: Holy Defense Museum site plan

Figure 28: Holy Defense Museum building positioning in relation to surroundings

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Figure 29: Holy Defense Museum weaponry around the site

Figure 30: Holy Defense Museum voids in building form to create entry and programmatic space

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Figure 31: Holy Defense Museum ramped core of circulation

Figure 32: Holy Defense Museum creation of continuous fluid galleries

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Figure 33: Holy Defense Museum long narrow gallery spaces

Figure 34: Holy Defense Museum connected gallery spaces uninterrupted by structure

Figure 35: Holy Defense Museum recreation of scenes from the Iran-Iraq War

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Figure 36: Holy Defense Museum connection of spaces through ramps and low slope escalators

Figure 37: Holy Defense Museum propaganda charged by Iranian denial

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Figure 38: Holy Defense Museum propaganda in media coverage exhibit through false headlines

Figure 39: Iran Bastan Museum new prominent building addition

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Figure 40: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art renovation

Figure 41: Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art oil pool renovation