An opening
From the first decade of the fourteenth solar century (the third decade of the twentieth century CE), Iranian architecture, and along with it the quality of dwellings, was transformed by the return of architects educated abroad. This article, while describing the historical conditions of architecture in these two decades, examines how those architects strove to define the expectations and the dwelling-needs of Iranians, of which the Iranians themselves were unaware until that time.
Iran in the first decade of the fourteenth solar century was still a country of traditional architecture, in which the profession and the art of architecture had been transmitted, year by year, by the master-to-pupil chain, and had grown into a comprehensive style. In spite of the richness of the traditional art of architecture, one may say that the quality in most dwellings was nearly the same.
By the end of this decade, for the first time, the young foreign-educated architects subjected the quality of the people's dwellings to criticism. Vartan Avanessian, the Iranian modernist architect, in Architect magazine — published in the second part of the 1340s decade — wrote of the quality of dwelling in the Iran of that time: 'The majority of Iranian people live in dwellings devoid of the slightest means of life. If we take a brief stroll through the old quarters of Tehran, we observe how the houses (or rather, shelters without roof or with half-roof), with walls that have no firmness, and windows without glass covered with dirty rags and tiny papers, confirm the truth of our words.'
Low quality of dwelling: universal
The low quality of dwelling was not particular to the destitute classes in Iran. The other people, in the eyes of architects, did not live in any easier condition. Vartan, in describing their dwelling, writes: 'Today, the Iranian lives in a small house or a similar dwelling, which is more or less usable, and generally meets his needs incompletely.'
Europe after the First World War
In Europe, in the 1920s, the situation was much the same. With the end of the First World War, the dwelling-condition of the majority of the people, hard hit by social and economic disorder, had become worse. This was one of the reasons that led European architects to seek fresh, effective, economic solutions for improving the people's dwellings, and brought the needs of the masses to the fore. In the manifesto of the first CIAM conference in 1928, modernist architects declared: 'The needs of the majority take precedence over those of the individual. Architects must work to satisfy the need for housing, working environment, and human dwellings. To attain this aim, there is no path but to change the dwelling.'
But what dwelling did the European architect have in mind, when he spoke of the quality of modern dwelling or the new needs of a citizen? Ludwig Hilberseimer, the eminent German art-historian, writes on this matter: 'A dwelling had to be created that would meet the expectations of mankind that, until then, had not been defined and of which he himself was unaware.'
Hygiene: bath, lavatory, washbasin
Architects, from the 1920s in Europe and from the 1930s in Iran, attended to a part of human private and social life in connection with the new sciences of medicine and public health. Hygiene became one of the principal factors of architectural design, and the notion of 'the dwelling's minimum hygienic requirement' — at the head of which were the bath and the lavatory — was put forward. The presence of a space called the bath in European homes was not new, though the number of such homes in 1920 was still few. Having a bath in the dwelling alone did not count as modern; what made the bath part of modern European spatial design was, first, the centrality of this space and its connection to the bedrooms.
Adolf Schneck, the German architect, in 1927 says of this matter: 'In a modern dwelling, beside the bedrooms, even if it is no more than 10 square metres, a space for a bath should be set aside. I do not mean a bath used only on holiday nights, that is a windowless, lightless cubby and that, throughout the week, serves as a storeroom; I mean a space in which modern man may attend to the keeping of his health and the daily hygiene of his body.'
Le Corbusier's plans clearly show the importance he attached to the bath. For instance, his Scheu House design of 1924: in this scheme the bath has been moved to the spatial centre of the house, and Corbusier even fits the wall form to the bath-tub to underline the importance of this space.
Guevrekian in Paris
The Heim house by Guevrekian in Paris, built in 1927, is another example showing the architect's emphasis on the closeness of bedroom and bath. Guevrekian, in this scheme, turned the bedrooms into independent ensembles with their own baths.
Lavatories in Europe at this time also moved from public corridors into the private dwelling, with a fresh definition — with a washbasin and fully hygienic. Guevrekian put this idea to good use in the decoration of the Pierre Delebart apartment in Paris (1928).
The change in Iran
Iranians, despite the importance of cleanliness in their religious teachings, in their traditional houses generally had no place called a bath. The dwellers of these houses could, in summer, use the deep courtyard pools as a bath. Baths in Iran were generally separate public buildings. Lavatories — small, lightless places, lacking stone or tile, wholly unhygienic — were placed in a corner of the home's courtyard.
In Iran, the first carrying-out of these hygiene ideas was widely raised from the 1310s/20s SH (1930s/40s). For example, a scheme of that period directly connects the first-floor bedrooms to a large bath. On the second floor, the guest room is fitted with a private shower. Lavatories on both floors are tiled and have washbasins.
From this decade onwards, Iranian architects took the bath into the schedule of the simpler and smaller houses, with bath and lavatory in the plan. The simple plan of the two-bedroom houses for the National Iranian Oil Company employees in Abadan, designed in 1321 SH (1942 CE), is a good witness of this change.
The Frankfurt Kitchen, 1928
In the new image that the modernist architects gave, the kitchen too gained a particular place. In place of ceremonial showy spaces, modern rooms gave way to hygienic, working spaces.
Le Corbusier, the famous French architect, says: 'The kitchen must be like a modern laboratory: clean, equipped with the latest inventions of the age.'
In late-1920s Europe, with the reduction of room areas, fresh and working ideas in kitchen design appeared. The most famous was the Frankfurt Kitchen, which Mrs. Margaret Schütte-Lihotzky, in 1928, designed and exhibited under the influence of Taylor's ideas. This scheme was the foundation of today's modern kitchens. In a surface of less than 6.5 m², all the needs of the housewife — from sink to stove — were laid out.
The aim of designing this kitchen was the saving of time, so that women might find the chance to work outside the home. In the city of Frankfurt alone, by 1930, more than 10,000 examples of this scheme had been carried out.
In traditional Iranian houses, the kitchen — or 'matbakh' — was generally far from the main quarters, in a corner of the courtyard. The matbakh was generally a not-very-clean, lightless cubby, with mud walls, a dirt floor, and timber-and-tile ceilings.
The Schröder House and the modern volume in Europe
Gerrit Rietveld, in his design for the Schröder House in Utrecht (1924), broke the modern volume of the house into a composition of horizontal and vertical planes. This experiment, contemporary with Le Corbusier's, defined a fresh boundary for the interior space of the home.
Footnote
* Negar Hakim, MA in Art History (Vienna University), majoring in Modern Architecture.