The Tale
AmirHossein Jafari Advisor : Julia Czerniak Thesis Committee members: Lindsay Harkema, Molly Hunker Syracuse University School of Architecture
Table of Contents
Part I Contention/Introduction/Narrative/Storytelling
Part II Written Precedent / Architectural precedent
Part III Sites/Story/Illustration
Contention This thesis investigates the potential of narrative storytelling to generate a design through speculation and depiction of the protagonist’s spatial experience. This story depicts scenes from the imagination of a girl on her journey from Yazd to Tehran, Iran. As the final product, I will speculate and [re]design the Ekbatan phase1 part through the view and precision of the protagonist
“With tremendous development of technology, a completely new poverty has descended on mankind. As a result experience has fallen in value and it is evading from people’s life due to machinery life that take human experience from us. ” Walter Benjamin - Poverty of Experience
Walter Benjamin talked about a new lifestyle that is evolved after WWI with rapid grow of technology and machinery. As a result he considered that the society is about to loose ‘experience’ and instead, ‘experience’ will be replaced by ‘information’. Experience shapes through layers of history and shaped spaces, culture, urban fabrics, art and etc. Architecture could be considered as the tool to create ‘experience’ through the history. In opposite, by the rising of modern lifestyle, ‘experience’ is fading from lives and people do not have ‘experience’ and ‘ understanding’ of space because they are setup and organized based on machinery abilities and limitation so that human experience is lost within the content of machinery life. In fact, architecture is a both the tool and the result of transforming human experience through layers of history. Tehran, as a metropolitan, is a city with historic notion. After 1960s Tehran engaged with the wave modernization that changed the face of the structure of the city from traditional to modern structure. As a result notion of human experience is evading from city and replaced by information. Ekbatan Residential Complex is the biggest residential apartment in Iran built in 1975 with the agenda of modernism, has the idea of machinery life. This place could be considered as the symbol of modern residential projects in Iran. Ekbatan faces the challenge that Walter Benjamin mentioned as lack human experience that created ‘Poverty of Experience’. Old city of Yazd, is shaped from long years of history that layered on each other. These historic layers shaped such a rich human experience that is still on going and can response to the modern life as a result people still live there.
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Narrative “Narrative that personify ethical or existential questions have profoundly shaped our understanding of space. These mythical tale and analogies have the power to mediate between the spatial configuration of the universe. Within the framework of these spatial geometries, narratives can be meaning.”- Nigel Coates Narrative is a story. It is about real or imaginary event[s] that is presented in chains of sequences by still or moving images. Narrative art tells a story, both about individual moments and sequences of events unfolding over time. Narrative art is a source for history, literature and visual arts that presents the image and the content of the society. Narrative in architecture could be considered as a method processing in design by illustrating of concepts in sequences to show desires, ideas and what the designer thinks, imagines and designs. It is a method to understand the vision and experience the protagonist
Story Telling Storytelling is one of the means of communication to express experiences, emotions and memory through history or experience of the person’s life. It’s a social activity sharing stories, often with improvisation, theatrics, or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and instilling moral values. Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include plot, characters and narrative point of view. Storytelling is a media in architecture to depict concepts and develop ideas through different sequences. Architects set up different boards and develop their ideas by illustrating and speculating possible experiences of their design through sequences. In this method, architects/designers consider the moments that present the concept by using a storyboard to frame the design.
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Precedents Written Resources The City and the City This book is a detective novel whose story revolves around a murder case of a archaeologist girl in a twin city which led the detective to find out there is a hidden city between the twin city as well. Based on the book the project is designing the new monument in order to present the 'new Jerusalem'. The monument depicts the city as united, encouraging the citizens of each side to be hopeful for a united future and define itself as the symbol of Jerusalem by montaging the new with the old symbols in order to have the legacy of the past. In designing Copula Hall in The City and The City it functions as a checkpoint between the two cities. The concept of the design is to make the checkpoint monumental as well as to facilitate the traffic from Berszel and Ul Qoma. The design does not only function as a checkpoint but also as the monument. In addition people and traffic can pass through as well as working as the monument of the city for both Berszel and Ul Qoma. "It is one of the few places that has the same name in both cities because it's not crosshatched building nor Alter building."1
Islamic Quarter
Perspective View of Copula Hall, Jerusalem
Armanian Quarter
Elevation of Copula Hall, Jerusalem
1. China MiĂŠville, The city and the city (London: Macmillan, 2009).
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Site Plan of Copula Hall, Jerusalem
Narrative Architecture- Nigel Coates In this book the author investigates role of narrative in architectural design since the beginning of the history and how narrative shaped the cities and buildings and how narrative engaged with architecture from ancient times to the present. He talked about how the function of narrative engages with other factors such as time and how it shapes the architectural experience. As he mentioned: “Story Telling is as old as hills. Even before the help of writing, universal myths were shaped by the oral tradition. Narrative enables phenomena powered by the unseen forces of nature to be ‘explained’, and corralled into a system of beliefs.
The city of Collective Memories- Christine Boyer This book has a critical view to post modern architecture and urban design in comparison with historic cities such as 19th century cities in terms of characteristics and memory. In this book Boyer looked through the role of history and memory and how these two created the concept of city and spaces within a city and compared it to 20th century. This book has a critical view to it and believes that cities of 20th century don’t have the notion of memory and history. As a result it triggers the problem of identity. As it is mentioned :” This book will argue that the shift of view from present to the historical from the modern to the traditional, from 20th century to 19 century city forms, leaves many questions unanswered. This book gives a good perspective and understanding about the notion of cities and would be useful for speculating futuristic cities which should be considered the notion of personal and collective memories.
Remembering, forgetting and City Builders- Tovi Fenster and Haim Yacobi This book explores how urban spaces are designed, planned and experienced in relation to the politics and shaping of collective and personal memories. This book investigates the urban spaces and political transitions through Middle East, American continent, Asia and Eastern Europe and sees how transitions and political events present themselves through public spaces.
The Museum of Innocence- Orhan Pamuk This book is a romantic story, written by Orhan Pamuk. This book explores the love story between a couple that are engaged. Architecture plays as mnemonic device in order to make connection between the man and woman. The significance about the book is that to show how sensorial experience about objects could be a generative potential for shaping new identity of space and collective/personal memories.
Inhabiting The Memoir: Architecture Through Narratives Structure- Erica Aronson This Thesis talks about the influence of narrative structure of architecture that presents architecture in a more meaningful and poetic way. This article explores how architecture can serve as a related medium in which to imbue narrative content and structures and explore narrative structures into form/space implications as a means of re-presenting and enhancing processes of self-discovery, meaning, and architectural experience.
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The Experience and Poverty - Walter Benjamin This article talks about the transformation of lives after WWI. Life styles after WWI rapidly move to becoming machinery and as Walter Benjamin mentioned the consequence of having machinery life would be evading of human experience from the modern life. In continue he mentioned ‘poverty in experience’ would the moder poverty that the human kinds never experience anything and they do whatever they want through devices and machines. He mentioned that in the future it will create new shape of barbarism. He mentioned that information will be replaced by experience in modern age.
The Story Teller - Walter Benjamin The story teller contain four stories that has architectural agenda. Walter Benjamin, discussed that actually story telling[teller] is the method in literature that transform the experience but with modernity and life-style, story telling loose its importance because it contradicts with human experience so as a result it replaced by novel. By fading experience, novels are moved toward a way to just present ‘information’ instead of experience.
Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino The book explores imagination and the imaginable through the descriptions of cities by an explorer, Marco Polo. The book is framed as a conversation between the aging and busy emperor Kublai Khan, who constantly has merchants coming to describe the state of his expanding and vast empire, and Polo. What’s important about the book is the method of description and explaining characteristics of each city based on sensation and feelings.
Each written source considered different aspects of the influence of narrative story. Narrative is been widely used in different fields such as architecture, sociology, history, art and etc. It gives an idea[s] to author / designer to have a clear vision from the protagonist point of view or lead others through to idea to make them able to understand the idea. In this thesis, I considered Walter Benjamin texts as primary sources because the contention of the thesis is to project the ‘experience’ of protagonist in a traditional architecture of Yazd and transform her experience into the content of a metropolitan of Tehran.
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Architectural Resources The Museum of Innocence
Entrance of the museum of Innocence
Orhan Pamuk
Museum of Innocence is the collection of objects that was gathered by Pamuk based on the the book with the same name. This collection consists of objects that are related to characters of the story, Kamal and Sibel. The museum opened in 2014 and consists of objects and collected items that are representatives of upper class and mid level life of Istanbul from 1977 to 2000. Some objects belong to everyday people’s life and some others belong to the characters of the story. The significance of the museum is memories and moments that are shaped by objects and their sensorial roles to create a memory / story.
Collected Watch in 1980s
Objects in the museum of Innocence
Collected Cigarrettes from 1977 - 2000
Collected Keys from 1977 - 2000
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Architecture Urban Theater- Thomas Hillier Designed by Thomas Hillier originates from Japanese Ando Hiroshige. This tale charts the story of two star-crossed lovers, the weaving Princess and the Cowherd who have been separated by the Princess’s father, the Emperor. The story is the love between a cowherd and a princess. After the father of princess finds out he segregated the princess and cowherd. Hiller, used elements that are rooted in Japanese tradition such as Origami objects and water. These characters have been replaced and transformed into architectonic metaphors creating an Urban Theatre within the grounds of the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo. What I will take and consider from this design, is to divide the story in different, non-consistent acts using sensorial feelings. but not using metaphorical elements. I also wouldn’t consider metaphorical elements of the design.
Segregation of princess from outer world River is the representative of segregation
Origami members are the representative of the emperor and tensile membrs are the represtative of exile
The Emperors Castle
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Jewish Museum - Libeskind Libeskind used a metaphorical method of design by using life of Jewish population in Berlin and their experiences. He used a metaphorical concept about the history of Jewish population in Berlin, their lifestyle and their influence on Berlin. As the result his design contains three metaphorical characters in order to present the history of Jewish population. 1- The garden on Exile, as the representative of harshness that Jewish population experienced to find the promised land 2- The Holocaust tower as the representative of Holocaust tragedy in WWII 3- The staircase of continuity as the representative of the longways that Jewish population has come and the longways that still left to freedom. What I will consider from this design is the sequences of story that leads the person through design and I don’t intent to consider the metaphorical aspects of the project.
The Exterior of Jewish Museum of Art, Daniel Libeskind
The Hoocaust Tower
The staircase of continuity
The Garden of Exile
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Imaging the Near FutureI- Fang Fan This thesis investigates the notion of representational project by creating a futuristic, alternative world [new world] along with [old world] and merging two realities together. As the result it creates a utopian vision of globalization. Fang Fan wrote a fiction as her method to investigate the representatinal project. The similarity of this project with my thesis is presentatechnique of this project consist of creating new future that layered on the present. She used range of materiality, texures and elements to show the layers of present and possible future.
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The 5th Facade - Olsun Kundig This Project investigated the possbile future of Seattle as a view of a person who had a cryonic surgery to fusion a body to his head. based on this story an architect has a cyonic surgery and wake up after decades, his past life condenced in a chipset and talks about his new experience of Seattle and compare it to his past life and possibility of eternal life. Regarding the time shifting, my protagonist moves from a historic city which architecture hasn’t change much to a metropolitan that everything changes rapidly. Also my story happens in the future, in terms of representational technique, the precedent used first person eye and present the design through perspectives.
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Sites
Map of Iran and specified sites of ‘Yazd’ and ‘Tehran’ 14
Tehran
Yazd
Source: Google Earth 15
Sites Yazd The city of Yazd, is located in the central part of Iran. Yazd is a historic city founded in 4th century AD. The city is among the oldest and the biggest clay cities in the world. The atmospheric spaces that were created by architecture such as mosques, interior spaces with ornaments and window crafting make the space valuable regarding being memorials. The old city has architecture that has remained since 4th century and is representative of the age of the city. The old city of Yazd is considered as one the sties in this thesis because of historic and traditional notion of Iranian architecture. Lari house in Fahadan neighborhood is considered as the first site. The fiction begins with the protagonist’s character in the house and she decide to leave the house after 25 years living there. The protagonist describes the moments and experiences that she has in historic places or architectural features that created special atmosphere/feelings for her.
Yazd Old City
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Yazd
Satellite view of the city ‘Yazd’, Source Google Earth
Fahadan
Lari House Satellite view of Lari House,Old City of Yazd, Protagonist’s house
Yazd Old City
Satellite view of Fahadan Neighborhood, Old city of Yazd, Source: Google Earth
Lari House
Fahadan Satellite view of Fahadan neighborhood,Old City of Yazd,
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Yazd - Fahadan Neighborhood
Alleyways in Fahadan, Old City of Yazd Photo Credit: Mehdi Akrami
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Lari House in Fahadan Neighborhood, Old City of Yazd Photo Credit: Mehdi Akrami
Religious School
Religious school in Fahadan, Old City of Yazd Photo Credit: Mehdi Akrami
Shrine and Hotel
Hotel Fahadan, Old City of Yazd Photo Credit: Mehdi Akrami
Shrine in Fahadan, Old City of Yazd Photo Credit: Mehdi Akrami
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Tehran- Ekbatan Residential Apartments “Consequently, the role of history and memory and the concepts of space and time in our con-temporary arts of city building need to be reconsidered.�-Christine Boyer Tehran, is the second city where the protagonist lives. It was founded in 17th century with different architectural agenda. It is unlike Yazd that has unique and united architectural features-styles that are consistent through time. Tehran has different faces and architectural features with completely different styles or even some aspects that contradict each other. These issues and lack of unity in Tehran derived from different reasons such as shifting in political power, civil unrests-wars, sudden change of development policies and rapid and out of control growth of the city. Since foundation of the city, Tehran faced few waves of massive growth in population and area. As the result different areas of Tehran developed in different times with different notions and ideas. The wave of 1970s is considered as the most important because Tehran became the pivotal point of modernity in Middle East due to rapid economic growth. New notion of Iranian modernism in architecture was created which acknowledged its past and had the look of the modern century. In 1970s West of Tehran became the center of modern development and new, modernist buildings such as monument, airport, residential complexes were raised. Azadi monument is the most important architectural project that represents entering of Iran to the modern century with its special architectural agendas. Ekbatan residential apartments, as the first place where the protagonist lives, could be considered as the most important and the most influential modern mass residential project. It hosts around 40.000 people with accessibility to transportation and infrastructural requirements such as schools and shopping center that somewhat makes the place independent form the city. Ekbatan was designed by collaboration of Iranian architect Rahman Golzar and American architect Jordan Gruzen and construction of the phase 1 was done by American company Starrett Corporation before the revolution of 1979. Ekbatan is considered in the story as the first neighborhood that the protagonist lives in when she moves to Tehran as a pose to experience the modernity.
Ekbatan
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Satellite view of Tehran, Ekbatan Residential Complex Source: Google Earth
Ekbatan Phase 1
Air Port
Satellite view of overall situation of, Ekbatan Residential Complex Source: Google Earth
Satellite view of Tehran, Ekbatan Residential Complex, Phase 1 Source: Google Earth
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Ekbatan Residential Complex Phase 1 Photo Credit: Mojtaba Jafari
The Tale
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Chapter I - Home It has been years since I came out from that old historic house that I used to live in. When I think about it, I miss the house Home is the beginning. The beginning, to me, is where you open your eyes and see the morning light. My beginning was always my room, on the floor, where the window above faced the garden. The beginning is when you open your eyes and see that light passes through the colorful stained windows of your room and merges into the color of the carpet and colorful ornaments. Every morning, I woke up with colors. My room changed at different ages. It seemed like my room was alive and knew my needs. It changed itself based on my needs, the time, and my age. My understanding of the room was different too. When I was a little kid, the room was small. As I grew older, it grew bigger and older with me. I remember the decorations of my room pulled me through my surreal world. I would play with the painting and decorations. I extracted different shapes such as grass, sheep, and other creatures and played with them. I remember Mr. Ghooli, the kind monster shape; he was among my best friends. He helped me with my homework, played with me, and even cheered me up when I was sad. I remember he even sang a song or lullaby when I wanted to sleep. When I grew older, other aspects of the room changed. It allowed space for my books, my desks, and my library. It felt like my room silenced everything to provide a suitable space for me to go deep into my books. Even Mr. Ghooli was helpful on some occasions. I remember he helped me with a geometrical drawing exercise. Coming out of my room, there was a corridor that connected all the rooms together, narrow and dark. Stairs connected the roof to the garden and landed on the iwan. My room was on the middle floor. Truth to be told, the stairs were annoying. They were small and spiral, with high steps. My grandparents rarely came up and down the stairs because it was bad for their knees. Iwans are mysterious. Ours was a pre-entrance and part of the interior as well as part of the exterior. To me, the iwan was the connection between the living room and the garden. I spent long hours staring at the sky framed between wind catchers, thinking and talking to myself. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” “I want to see what’s in faraway places. Or maybe be an artist. Yeah! I’d like to be an artist! Maybe a painter or a photographer or even an actress!” “Where do you want to visit first?” “A bigger city!” “Why?” “They’re big—endless—people are everywhere, all the time. It’s not like here, where everyone goes to sleep at 10 pm. Honestly, at some points, it’s boring! I think in Tehran there are lots of exciting things going on and nicer places to visit. So I want to move to Tehran and became an artist!” “What you will visit first?” “Azadi monument! In books, I saw that it’s super big! Even bigger than the biggest mosque in Yazd!” And it came true! Years later it was at this iwan again that I made my decision to move to discover faraway places. It was a coincidence of life that the newspaper had an opening position in Tehran. At this iwan, I decided to apply. It was at this iwan that I got a phone call that I was approved for the Tehran position, and it was at this iwan that I decided I would move. I knew that it was not easy to move and start from the beginning—to move to a place where I wouldn’t know anyone— where I wouldn’t have relatives. There would not be big houses with spacious living rooms and all the furniture, carpets, and curtains; in my home, all these had been handcrafted by an artist that devoted time to make such intricate pieces. In fact, the iwan was a collection of art. Now I have to find art in museums. The moment I decided to move, I sat on the handcrafted sofa and again thought to myself:
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“So you’ve decided to go?” “Yeah! I will.” “You know that won’t be easy right?” “Yeah! I know.” “There will be no harmonious khaki-cream colored buildings. There will not be moments that you get on the roof and watch the wide horizon that connects the roofs to the sky with smooth lines of domes and roofs. There, the horizon is blocked and most buildings are gray, concrete boxes!” “Yeah I know!” “You are still ambitious to move?” “Yeah! I don’t think everything will be ugly in this new place. There are millions of people living there; there will be a lot of things going on to discover. I know that there is no wind catcher or other specific elements, but I have to experience it! All in all, there is more space to grow in Tehran. I think I’m done here; at some point, this city gets boring, small, and I can’t do much.” “I see! Aren’t you stressed about leaving your comfort?” “Of course I am! I’m stressed and at the same time excited to go somewhere new, visit new places and meet new people. I’m stressed that the new place might not be safe. In this house there are so many rooms that I don’t know what to do with them, whereas in the new place there will be just enough space to fit your body, not even the soul! But I’m eager to go experience and discover what is called a ‘modern city.’” “How about leaving the house that shaped your character?” “I’m sad about it, and I hope I can find a place where I can fit in and be comfortable with my soul. I hope I can adapt my identity to the new environment and develop it! I hope the place I move to will be the same as my dreams, and those dreams won’t turn into a nightmare!” “I don’t know; I will go to Tehran. But I think some part of my childhood will remain.”
Central Garden
View front all angles to the central Garden. There is no view from outside
Windcatcher, as a tool of passive cooling system.
Iwan
In the end, I moved to Tehran. I moved from a spacious house and a beautiful garden, and I didn’t think I would see a lot of those kinds of houses in Tehran. I moved from a traditional place to a “modern” world. I think “modernity” is not just dark, gloomy, and sad. I think it is at some points, but on the other hand, there is more to see and more to experience, such as places, events, celebrations, etc. I think there are nicer things about “modernity” as well. There are even nicer buildings, and above all, there are wonderful opportunities for photography.
Iwan, as a spatial element to create a scenery view to the garden
End of Chapter I
Her Bedroom
Acess to the roof
Her Bedroom has acess to the roof Entrance
Enterance to the house, is through a closed and narrow corridor, which opens in garden.
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Chapter 1 - Home
Chapter II – Neighborhood It has been years since I came out from that old historic house that I used to live in. When I think about it, I miss the house even more. It was the best of times. I’m glad I grew up traditionally in a traditional place. That is why I decided to write a diary: to write about the home after five years of moving out of my hometown—to write about moments that I left behind because I thought I could have a better life and opportunity without them—to write about moments that shaped my identity. Moments that made me, “me.” “Home”—to me it is the beginning of life. It is the place where existence is shaped—the place where I created my dreams and my refuge for escaping from the tediousness of the daily life of the outside world. Home is not only a place for the body; it is a place for building up the soul and character. Each person’s soul has only one “home.” The real home of someone is the home of their soul, regardless of whether they were there for a short time or for many years—even though the house might be left empty for ages. Even if the person passes away, the soul still wanders in his/her “home.” It can be a small, cozy apartment downtown, or it can be an estate far from the intensity and tensions of a big city. My “home,” Lari House in the Fahadan neighborhood, is the place my spirit is still wandering. The neighborhood is old. It was old then, and it will always remain old. Maybe it was there before today’s big cities were born. In houses made out of brick and clay, everything smells old, especially in the rain, when water seeps into the earth and the smell of dust fills the air. I could smell the centuries. Sometimes I would just walk through a place, finding somewhere to sit. I would sit and procrastinate, maybe drink tea or eat something. It felt like the atmosphere had paused in time. That’s what I love about an old neighborhood or city the most. I loved the path that I would walk down from high school to home. I loved the way I walked from work to home, even though I remember that it was a long way, but it was always sweet. Narrow and covered alleyways were my favorite because they were like a maze—playful; every direction gave me a different view. The path was so narrow I could stretch both hands out and touch the walls. In that moment, I was able to connect myself to history, by touching the coarse and sometimes cracked walls, I could feel centuries of history, and I imagined the little girls that passed down the walls at different ages. I imagined their feelings, what they wore. I felt connected to the history of those little girls that passed from those walls. I remember a lot that was created by the space and what I experienced there, which was specific to Yazd. I don’t have them here. I remember once I was walking back from the newspaper office I was working at. I saw people in one neighborhood; they brought out their food and were eating together. I joined them so I could get to know some people in another neighborhood. I was captivated by their kindness, amongst themselves and with strangers. At every event and every ceremony, people engaged in the community with closeness like they were all one family. At that time, I loved going out and socializing with people. I still remember the fruity smell of the foods: plum stew with saffron and pomegranate paste with shredded walnuts. The smells spread out through the entire Fahadan neighborhood, to invite, attract, or show the way to other people who were wandering around. Another day, I was walking on a different path. In one of the alleyways, I saw a girl dancing in her own world. At that moment, I saw myself, my child inside. Like Fitzgerald said: ”I was within and without.” I thought to myself, How nice to be a little girl here. In these narrow paths you can live your dreams. Without interrupting her dream, I photographed her in order to always remember her moment and the similar moment that I had. I remember when I was a high school girl, maybe 16 or 17 years old. I was walking back from school with friends. We decided to go to Ziya’iye school, also known as Alexander’s prison, to visit. The central garden was big, and the dome was high for a high school girl, and I liked to stand beneath it. In the center of that old high dome, I would stare at the highest point and feel like the dome was stretching to the sky. We played there. I can remember we played hide and seek, and after we were tired, we did some homework together till sunset. That was my favorite place when I was a kid because it was close to home and we could be loud girls and play freely.
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All of the buildings were old but more alive than many of the new buildings. It has been a long year since I moved to Tehran. Unlike Yazd, everything here is new. I miss my soul, which I left in that time and place, in Yazd. Even after all these years and moving to different places, my soul is still in my hometown. Whenever I walk on these wide streets, I feel that my soul wanders in those covered alleyways that provided shade. My soul is still walking in the old neighborhood, running and playing on the long paths. When I think about the times I was in Yazd, I notice how in our neighborhood, cars were separated from houses. That room—that house—that neighborhood was the place where humanity was our tradition; the paths were narrow, but our minds were open. There were tall walls between us, but our hearts were connected. Now, after a year in Tehran, I think of how the neighborhood shaped me.
Map of Fahadan with central gardens Meandering Path to her work place
End of Chapter II
Skyline of Yazd
Geometry of Vaults in alleyways and covered path
Materiality
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Chapter 2- Neighborhood
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Chapter III - Block
I decided to go to Tehran.at last! Because I wanted to make an improvement. I didn’t want to be invariant. I didn’t want to do the same job over and over. On the one hand, I loved Yazd; It is my being and my identity. On the other hand, I felt that if I stayed too long, everything would become repetitive. There was not much going on, and I felt bored in repetition. I hated being trapped in repetition. I like to grow. I felt Yazd was limited, though everything was well. It’s a good place to work and to live, but I wanted to grow. I wanted to discover—discover a better life of better quality. I wanted to move somewhere that always had things to discover. So after few years of thinking, I decided to move to Tehran—a bigger place that doesn’t get repetitive and is usually awake. Tehran doesn’t have the limitation of Yazd, so I am able to develop my skills and abilities. I can learn more in Tehran rather than Yazd. I can go forward and grow in Tehran as much as I want. That’s why I decided to come out of my comfort zone. I decided to discover the world. I decided to leave connections and belongings behind. I decided to leave “home.” When I decided to move, I new this decision would hard. When I was walking in the garden and starring at the sky and deeply thinking I knew that if I move, I will miss this, missing to be in the garden that is secure and I can be free there. I knew I might not be able to see something like this anymore. I won’t see these rough clay walls. In Tehran, all ways/path are straight and direct, and these are no place for meandering. The whole way could be defined as home – Subway – work, and back. There is no space for me the think clearly on the way. I don’t have a moment to myself on the way back. There is no moment to slowly, winding and meandering in alleyways and imagine. Because technically there are no alleyways. At most I can go few streets up or down which does there is nothing special to discover. Of course, I might get lost though. Whereas In Yazd, the path was so confusing but getting lost was meaningless. Tehran has nice buildings to visit they mostly are inhumane and out of human scale. Buildings are so big, and streets are so wide that makes me feel that it’s too much and I feel stressed when I want to pass from one side to the other side of the street, but I choose to come because of better opportunities and better life qualities. Ekbatan, the first place I moved, it’s beautiful but at the same time gigantic, enormous and inhumane. All Ekbatan’s buildings are built of concrete. They are nice, but they are ard to be felt. I’m far from them though when I get close. Feeling them is hard for me. I touch the concrete wall and still don’t feel anything. The market in the middle is nice, but I feel there is something is missed and I don’t know what it is. Maybe because it’s dark or its style is different than Yazd Bazar. Azadi Tower, it’s close by, It’s beautiful, it’s colossal, and it has modern and old identities of Iran its inside. It’s greater than me! Greater than I thought before. Special me that I don’t use to this kind of great architecture. So, I moved to Tehran. At last! I decided to go for a better opportunity, better life quality, bigger city, more things to discover. Yazd is a place where time is stopped, and Tehran is a place to move forward. The first place I lived was Ekbatan residential complex. In Tehran, Ekbatan is a “modern” place. It was the first time I engaged with the word “modern.” People understand “modern” as nice or new, or even new-nice. To me, they all might be true, but I feel more than being nice or new, “modern” means simple. In order to be new or nice in this century, you have to get rid of all elements that are representative of tradition, history, culture, and language, and then simplify everything to the most basic and fundamental elements. To be able to build high, you have to be simple. You can not have 20 floors high and have muqarnas. This is the first difference I noticed between Fahadan and Ekbatan. Another big, important thing I learned was the word “metropolitan.” It’s what some intellectuals call huge cities, when they want to pretentiously describe it. I find some people are proud of this city. I don’t know what they are proud of. Are they proud that they lost their history and culture to modernity and replaced old and beautiful architecture that recorded a significant history with concrete boxes? I understand this so-called “metropolitan” as so big the border of the city fades.
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Block 3
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This very first place that I moved—to me it’s not actually a neighborhood—is a place shaped by constructing massive modern buildings, unlike Fahadan, which builds out of clay, brick, and humanity. Here in Ekbatan, buildings are made out of concrete, glass, and machinery. People here rely on cars if they want to go somewhere in the city, and Ekbatan is almost independent from the rest of Tehran. It’s strange to me that there are people who sometimes stay here weeks without going to visit the city—not going anywhere, not visiting anywhere, and not discovering anything. Buildings look close but are too far and won’t be touched. They are visible but not perceived, and of course, those building only have rough surface of concrete. I remember the first impression I had of Ekbatan was that it felt like I was entering a military base because it had a guard. It had been implemented since the 1970s, and they never got rid of it. Next, I thought the view was blocked by trees and tall buildings, although the streets were wide. Yazd streets are narrow and its walls are short. It is not all a grey and gloomy life. It has its own beauty. There is a lot to discover and opportunities to grasp, and this is why I moved here. So I see those things in Ekbatan as well. Ekbatan has significant landscape and full of green spaces and parks that they provide nice shade and atmosphere. Landscape do a nice job to forgetting this inhumane scale and they attract the attention from these ‘modern’ monsters to nature. Sometimes I spend time, lying down under tree’s shade, think and procrastinate. Watching children playing, is one the moments that I can going out of this ‘modernity’ and felt connected to home. In Yazd, buildings have been merged throughout history so that the neighborhoods are mixed. But here, historic layers are distinguishable. For example, building blocks were constructed between 1970-1980, parks were built in the 1990s, and some other facilities and infrastructure were built in the 2000s up to until now. In fact, all of these elements together shape their special “experience” within their short history.
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It’s hard to see the end of the city from a roof. There is no beginning, and there is no end. There are millions of people, and you can find everything everywhere. There is so much to see, and yet, nothing can be watched. A lot of things to touch yet nothing to experience. It feels like everyone is alone together. This place, Ekbatan, is “more” in every aspect of the word in comparison to Fahadan. In my hometown, everything can be understood within certain measurements and scales. Space can be perceived, and it can be framed. It feels like someone leads you through sequences of space and guides you where you want to go and what you want to look at. But in Tehran, nothing can be framed, and no one knows what they are to looking for. It feels like the whole structure is scattered—lots of things are going on, a lot of news is happening, and a lot of events are being held, though none of them sound important or matter to me. Though I’m working on news agendas and photography, all of them feel redundant.
Block 2
Block 1
Highway Phase1 Accessibility
Phase1 Building Types
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Chapter 3 - Block
Chapter IV - Imagination After several months, I used to the new place—I adapted myself by running away from this modernity and create my own imagination as escape point. I learned to have a good spatial experience and framed sequences in Yazd. I brought all those experiences from Fahadan to Ekbatan, to a place that there no similarities. Every single detail is different. Every single person is different. But I learned to make connections between the new place and old place. I created a world of my own imagination and to fold Fahadan and ekbatan together to create a new world that has both sides beauties. A place for me, that is just me and myself, free from all binding. A world that helps me become ‘the free girl’. I merged the spatial sequences and moments of Yazd to ‘descale’ this modernity. To create a world for myself and I can be meandering as a used to and at the same time makes these monsters more perceivable and makes the landscape more pleasurable. A place that I can run away and forget the pressure of the place. Through this imagination I created an elevated park on top of the market, a place I’m also closer to sky. I can challenge the ‘modernity’ and break it down by having my created momentum through space that brings harmony. In addition my imagination- my world adds another layer to Ekbatan, to help it to creates its experience. Another layer to its identity. Through this layer, I don’t just imagine that I meander in Fahadan but rather I re-imagine my experience of Fahadan to create my own world. Through this imagination that I made for myself, I created a place where I can forget the pressure of the city, the tiredness of the day, and the long distance from home to work. There are only people walking or biking, the same as Fahadan. That walkway with its wooden floor and green parts with benches is where I sometimes sit on the way back from work, sit there and procrastinate. It smoothed out since moving. I found friends. The public park with tall trees that has been here since 1970 and is connected to the elevated walkway with short plants and smaller trees. Between the block I live on and the building in front is Ekbatan Market. That space is the closest to “home,” but it still reminds me of how they are completely different. The courtyard back home was private, and here it is public. “Publicity” and not having private space in open air was another thing I learned in living in this kind of apartments. I learned that anything that is not covered—by covered, I mean the bedroom, living room, kitchen and bathroom—is public. I am only free from wall to wall and nothing more. Other places are shared. Some are shared specifically with others on their floor; some are shared with all of the building’s inhabitants. Some others are shared with everyone. In other words, I can’t be myself outside in the way that I was at home. I can’t be free without my scarf, and I have to wear my outside clothes. This is a challenge to not have outside privacy. I can’t be outside in the park the same way I am in my dreams. The first public place I visited when I moved here was a green space courtyard, and I wasn’t comfortable. But, as the time passed, I got used to it, and I still don’t wear my scarf in my world while I am in the park, deeply dreaming. There is one thing that is weirdly annoying. It is that this “modernity” eradicates some important elements. This is the same point I was making when I said that simplicity is modernity. It eradicates things that are what tradition called “elements of beauty,” such as ornaments and paintings. It simplifies everything to the simplest things: wall, ceiling, roof, floor. That’s it! There is no iwan where I can sit and stare at the sky, think, and make important decisions. There is no courtyard where I can be free without being interrupted by a stranger. Both the walkway and the garden are crowded. Sometimes I go there during the middle of the night to be free and without my scarf. No one is there, in my imagination, it’s just me and myself a solo soul rewinding through paths that I created myself. It’s nice that I walk into my own imagination. In fact this enables me to not to see the brutality of modernism and to find beauty and harmony in my the world I created for myself.
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There is one thing that is weirdly annoying. It is that this “modernity” eradicates some important elements. This is the same point I was making when I said that simplicity is modernity. It eradicates things that are what tradition called “elements of beauty,” such as ornaments and paintings. It simplifies everything to the simplest things: wall, ceiling, roof, floor. That’s it! There is no iwan where I can sit and stare at the sky, think, and make important decisions. There is no courtyard where I can be free without being interrupted by a stranger. Both the walkway and the garden are crowded. Sometimes I go there during the middle of the night to be free and without my scarf. No one is there, in my imagination, it’s just me and myself a solo soul rewinding through paths that I created myself. It’s nice that I walk into my own imagination. In fact this enables me to not to see the brutality of modernism and to find beauty and harmony in my the world I created for myself. There are not muqarnas that drag me into my dreams and no wind cacther to listen to while I am on the roof, or to get cool by their natural breeze in the hot summer day whereas there is a dream. “Oh look! Such an easy life, better life, better quality.” “It’s beautiful, it’s attractive—I have never seen something like this.” “I feel like I am being pushed through time or moving to a different world. I’m glad I’m here.” End of Chapter IV
Floor 5-10
Floor 10-15
Floor 1-5
Pilotis
Imagination Form
Exisiting Market
Building Block
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Chapter 4 - Imagination
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Chapter V - Scene
t feels like everything in life begins from where it ends, and it ends from where it begins. Day and night merge at one point: “home.” When I moved into this new place, I realized how home was important. I realized how much my hometown was home—its bigness, its garden, and its other elements were important to shape my world. When I moved in, I was both happy and shocked. I was happy because I moved to a new place. It was modern, it was nice, and I rented underrate. It was a good start for a new life. A new place is always exciting, and it was especially exciting because it was my first place in Tehran, and the first place I rented myself and lived independently in. New city, new neighborhood, new place. In this so called “modern” place I live, the first beautiful thing I loved was that my apartment was on the 8th floor. I had never been higher than the 3rd floor in Yazd. I liked that I was higher. I loved the times I sat on the sofa in my living room and looked outside around sunset when the sky got pink and the lights were turning on. I could see millions of lights that spilled into the darkness, and I could see my reflection I really love the living room. I can sit on the couch at night and watch the endless lights from the window. The view from the window is not directed to frame a specific view or place, so watching this endlessness was quite interesting at first. From the living room window. In the window, in the foreground of the city. I drank a cup of tea and looked outside. By the way, in Tehran, windows are wider. Unlike Yazd, they open to the streets and not to the courtyard. Those moments were the best for thinking deeply, like the times I would sit in the iwan!, I can throw myself to the other side of the city; I can go wherever I want to go and do whatever I want to do freely. It’s what I love the most about the apartment. After all, this “modernism” was simple, though it has a lot of complicated things to discover. The most annoying thing that makes me feel bad is there is no open private space to be free for any of the apartment— no open air where I can take off my scarf and go out and get my hairs dance in the wind. They call it the “new way of being beautiful.” Of course, they wouldn’t pay an artist to engrave their buildings. Industrial art has its own beauty, which I agree has a lot to say of course! But it’s not as mesmerizing as handcrafted arts such as muqarnas. I feel those traditional arts are made for drowning the person in themselves. It feels like they are meant to make the person dreamy and push the person into his/her dreams. They are meant to insufflate beauty and love into the human soul. Industrial construction is bewitchingly beautiful, so I am seduced, but they have become repetitive and boring after few months. I am used to them, and they don’t catch my eye at all anymore. However, muqarnas, with their complicated geometries, were always new to me. I thought a lot, and I got to a conclusion. These muqarnas are rooted so deep in my soul because I grew up in a traditional city and I developed such a strong connection that I feel they are some part of me, as well as being part of my history and culture. Each part of each muqarnas is built with different techniques, and because they are built manually, not every surface’s thickness and roughness are the same. This is why they always feel new, and their qualities are still different. Whereas in this new industry, every beauty is the same, feels the same, and is the same. All the doors are the same; they just open and close. They don’t play with the quality, and they don’t have artwork. All the windows are the same; they are just openings to outside to bring daylight in. They don’t play with light, they don’t make space colorful, they don’t frame the view to the outside, and in fact, in Tehran, there is not much of a specific thing to be framed anyway. Though I love watching the city at night. At the beginning everything was exciting. Day after day, I got more used to the modernism, and after that, all those things that I was occupied by lost their attraction and fell apart.
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After several months, things changed. “Do you remember that every single thing was attractive and nice, but the moment you got used to it, its beauty shattered and fell apart, and the tragic part of it is that nothing looks beautiful for you and you don’t feel peace and harmony. You feel there is something wrong, and something is missed.” “I should change something; if there is something wrong, I have to fix it. If something is being missed, I have to fill it. I have lived in my dreams since this life got boring for me. I can’t live forever in my dreams. I have to bring the muqarnas in my dreams to the real world. I have to build my own world, step by step, rather than just thinking about what I left behind. I have to overlap dream and reality.” “I have to imagine again! Imagine a better place that I can be. I can be myself.” What building block misses the most is that public places for habitats like get there socialize and they need it to not to feel cramped in each other. To feel better. Even for me. A big space that feels like an open space. I need to walk through my imagination and build some part of the building. That I could walk there alone, through the world, I created for myself by my imagination. To imagine that I walk there at midnight, alone, without a scarf and free. It would be nice that to imagine this space not just out of concrete but also made out of nature! “I have to build again.”
View to the Canopy
Bench
End of the Chapter V End of the Story
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Chapter V - Scene
Bibliography, Benjamin, Walter, and Harry Zohn. “The Story-Teller: Reflections on the Works of Nicolai Leskov.” Chicago Review 16, no. 1 (1963): 80. Benjamin, Walter. “Experience and Poverty.” 731-36. “The 5th Facade Project.” OK - Olson Kundig. Accessed September 12, 2017. http://www.olsonkundig.com/projects/ the-5th-facade-project/. Kadoi, Yuka. “Aspects of Frescoes in Fourteenth-Century Iranian Architecture: The Case of Yazd.” Iran 43 (2005): 217. Fairy tales: when architecture tells a story. New York: Blank Space Publishing, 2014. Pamuk, Orhan, and Maureen Freely. The museum of innocence: a novel. London: Faber and Faber, 2010 - Calvino, Italo, and William Weaver. Invisible cities. London: Vintage, 1997. Boyer, M. C. The city of collective memory its historical imagery and architectural entertainments. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. Bleeckere, Sylvain De, and Sebastiaan Gerards. Narrative architecture: a designers story. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. Robbe-Grillet, Alain. For a new novel: essays on fiction. New York: Grove Press, 1982. Coates, Nigel. Narrative architecture. London: Wiley, 2012. Gerards, Sebastiaan , and Sylvain De Bleeckere. Narrative Architecture: A Designer’s Story. Rutledge, 2017. Fenster, Tovi, and Haim Yacobi. Remembering, forgetting and city builders. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010.
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