The publication of Mehrdad Iravanian's works in the last issue of Memar provoked very positive reactions, and Memar's readers welcomed the presentation of noteworthy work by architects of other cities. At the same time a letter reached the magazine from one of the students of the Faculty of Art and Architecture of Shiraz which, while paying tribute to Mehrdad Iravanian's work, raises some points from the position of an observer or a passer-by; you may read it below.
When I was at secondary school I passed every day, on the bus along the route to school, in front of the three-kilometre park "Baghe Boland" (which in Shiraz most people call "the Chamran Expressway verge park"), and I was a witness to and an observer of the building of this project over the more or less long period of its execution.
At that time, without knowing anything of architecture or knowing the architect of this work, I admired parts of this project and some parts of it struck me as strange. I always think one should value this "first impression" of ordinary viewers — that is, the view of the impartial viewer who is confronted simply with "the work itself". Especially if what is in question is the "art of architecture", and a work that counts as a "public" building and which naturally a "general" audience also uses.
I recall that I admired the "daring" of the building's architect. A project was to be built in Shiraz different from anything built in this city before it. The characteristics of this project allowed the architect, more or less free of the constraints of "functional" questions, to present the "artistic" side of architecture. This project was able to become a subject of debate for many people who perhaps had not previously attended to the "aesthetic" side of architecture. To my mind, that a work of art should bring a great deal of debate in its train is itself "good" and a sign of the work's importance.
This daring had in some places produced interesting results. For example, in one part of this park there was a thick and aged tree which over time had been burned by local people and had dried out. The intertwined and beautiful roots of this withered tree were brought up out of the earth during the park's construction and set vertically as a decorative object. An interesting invention, which was a mark of respect for the surrounding nature and of drawing the viewer's attention to the hidden aspects of nature.
The placing of several millstones from an old mill in the same vicinity in the park's face was of the same order. Quite apart from the admirable creativity and daring of Mr Iravanian, the fact that two of his projects (Baghe Boland and Khajoo Park) have become the evening promenades and the principal weekend destinations of the city of Shiraz, and that hundreds of people come and go in them daily, is a matter for pride for their architect (a pride that perhaps few works of architecture in Shiraz possess).
But in a project built for the use of "the people", the work must also be examined in relation to its consumer. In the absence of an "architect" who defends his own work, the work of architecture must express its value on its own.
I doubt that any of the passers-by who have seen the metal rods driven into the concrete slab have grasped its architect's allusion to "spring rain". When the gardens along the Chamran verge are drowned in the orange of autumn and autumn is felt in the background, how can a few round rods driven into a concrete gateway recall the rain of spring? (even if we inscribe the word "spring" on this gateway as well.) How can the presence of a few books and pencils and one enormous metal pair of spectacles recall childhood? (books and pencils and spectacles are rather the emblem of adulthood and of learning.) The rusted I-beams that have raised their heads out of the earth, and a pool that has been split in two with the ground cracked, immediately bring to mind the idea of "earthquake" rather than "the destruction of the old by means of the new" (an element that would be the emblem of "being new" is absent from this part).
Those who use this park will certainly notice sooner the lack of a bench to sit on, of a drinking fountain, of a safe place to park a car, or of an easy way to cross the width of an expressway that has so far seen a number of accidents, than they will grasp the idea of the changing seasons or of the different periods of life in this park's architecture. A child who slides down the covered, grey concrete slide in fright and comes down, and its father and mother who look anxiously at the angles of this slide, are certainly not thinking that this slide is a symbol of day and night.
People find nothing in this park of what they hold in their minds of the old gardens of Shiraz. (The gardens along the dry riverbed are not, contrary to what appeared in the article in the magazine's recent issue, "the new district of Shiraz". Rather these gardens have long been a part of Shiraz and of its people's historical memory.) The mud-brick walls and the hedges that Mr Iravanian has used in one corner of this park are a good element for evoking the former character of these gardens and their intimacy and closeness to nature. It is not clear why he chose concrete as his principal material. Those who go to a park do so to rest from city life and its consequences, not to look at cement surfaces and trees made of concrete! It struck me as telling that someone had written the phrase The Wall in paint on several concrete panels built in this park in the shape of a house and several flat trees! As though he had found a fitting place to inscribe the emblem of protest against industrial society!
Although many of the ideas used in this work are admirable, it seems that some of these ideas have not been well consolidated at the stage of passing from "idea to form". Since "creativity" also contains within it "the element of departure from the customary", if it is not organised it may also fall into "dispersion". "Coherence" — in the sense of directing the various parts of a design towards conveying the creator's particular view — is not inconsistent with "showing the plural culture of contemporary man". "Baghe Boland" has come to resemble an exhibition corridor with pictures hung at intervals along its wall. The viewer asks himself whether there was any intention behind the use of so many different materials and elements.
I will mention one further point, to which less attention has been paid in the architectural climate of Iran: that the principles of Western aesthetics and its proportions are not necessarily beautiful to the Iranian viewer. Although today we live in narrow, tall buildings with thin walls, our people's historical aesthetic sense is nevertheless inspired by the precedent of past architecture. Although a thin, narrow and tall concrete gateway can be erected with today's technology, to the trained Iranian eye it does not appear static and firm.
