A Look at Residential Architecture After the Revolution

Manzarieh Residential Complex by Dariush Shahnavaz has managed, with a relatively complex and modular volumetric composition and generous terraces, to keep the work from being overwhelmed by personal taste. The Pars Residential Complex, by the same designer, raises the old theme of the urban streetscape. The interconnected buildings, placed on the project’s irregular site, organize the site in a relatively bold manner. The aesthetic of the facade remains unsuccessful; had this designer offered a kind of aesthetic matching his spatial ideas, the work would undoubtedly have been more successful.

Kamraniyeh Residential Complex by Faramarz Sharifi blends the modern duplex model with the historical and traditional motif of the central courtyard. The result is a building that is more or less a simple rectangular cube on the exterior, but is broken and engaging within. The interior space, though symmetrical, is more successful than the formal exterior facade due to the small scale of elements and the variety of solids and voids and complex rhythm, along with the balconies. The relatively complex and diverse spatial organization of the building has not found a suitable equivalent in the coloring and use of materials, and in this respect the work appears somewhat heavy and disharmonious.

Two good apartment buildings built close to each other on Fereshteh Street are the work of Behrouz Bayat. These two buildings, though they do not raise a new artistic issue, are of very good quality architecturally, and skill, precision, and taste have been employed in their design. In the overall spatial organization and design of details, references to the vernacular architecture of Tehran and Shemiran have been made. In these two buildings, the public circulation spaces, entrances, terraces, and balconies are distinctive and attractive. The facades, in terms of the concentration of numerous disparate elements, appear somewhat cluttered; however, due to the gradation of lightness and heaviness of elements in relation to the connection with the ground and the skyline, and also due to the volumetric composition of the facade elements, this feature is not bothersome.

The building designed by Mohammadreza Nikbakht in Zafaraniyeh is attractive due to the warm color of its brick and wood combined with other materials. But the concentration of diverse and disparate formal elements—clearly beyond the building’s capacity—has made the entrance area somewhat indigestible. The plan of the building, which in the manner of placing different spaces together—square, rectangular, semicircular, and hexagonal—evokes archaeological excavation plans, reinforces the eclectic content of the work. Playfulness in proportions and the use of scattered decorative elements has been somewhat excessive, yet has given the building a cheerful quality.

Friar Javaherian, in the Pirayesh House, demonstrates that he possesses a distinctive style. His works, as I have stated elsewhere, are pleasant, good, and useful. But in terms of architectural discourse and from an aesthetic standpoint, they do not raise an important issue. His architecture is, on the whole, very hedonistic. Beautifully composed and colorful floor-work, numerous references to Iranian architectural motifs that everyone loves, the warm and inviting interior space decorated at intervals with exposed brick, and the small water feature adorned with turquoise tiles are the hallmarks of his work. The most notable aspect of Friar Javaherian’s work is the central patio of the house, which has been remarkably well executed.

The Saadatabad residential building by Behrouz Pakdaman has organized the difficult and irregular site well. The play of volumes, color, and different materials is attractive. The attic and rooftop have been turned into subjects for invention. Nevertheless, the rhythm and design of the windows appear to be several steps behind the volumetric composition and spatial organization of the project.

Two villas more or less similar to each other in Mazandaran by Reza Ali-Abadi are notable in terms of their interpretation of native materials and the combination of materials and volume. The plan employs the ancient motif of the nine-part square, but the exterior volume—contrary to the static model of the plan—enjoys an attractive variety and composition of solid and void. The details of the architecture have been designed with care and taste. Villa 136 presents the vernacular architecture of the coastal regions of the Caspian Sea in a new revision, with a touch of postmodernism that is the only notable weakness of the project. The use of cement render and plaster on the facade and the valorization of the aesthetics of these humble materials is noteworthy.

The Lavasan Villa by Bahram Shokouhian is situated on an elongated parallelogram-shaped plot set against a mountain slope. The project has organized the site well, and the conventional relationship of object within context has been transformed into a coherent relationship where solid and void, closed and open are not divided into first and second order in a spatial hierarchy. Spatial relationships, access routes, and circulation are three-dimensional and designed at various levels. This building is, on the whole, commendable in terms of volumetric composition, facade aesthetics, and architectural details. The south facade—which is the only notable weakness of this work—is symmetrical in an unjustified and imposed manner and also detracts from the project’s appeal due to its dated quality.

The Fashandak Villa by Hossein Naseri, with its cross-shaped plan and an architecture that more or less recalls the farmhouses of southern Europe, and the memory of the five-door room—with its simple facade and stained-glass windows that evoke the interior of homes from the 1970s (Hejri)—though better than most common buildings in the country, does not present remarkable innovation in architectural discourse.

The Malkar Villa by Rashid Khamarlou is a complex composed of two-story detached houses. The overall design of the complex, though lacking in innovation, is attractive in terms of the composition of volumes and especially the shape of the windows, both in whole and in detail. In the design of the gable roof and windows, careful attention appears to have been paid to climatic issues—wind direction and snow load.

The villa at Salaheddinkola by Shahriar Ghadimi is worthy of praise due to its simplicity and essential quality. The building’s typology and its placement on the land are inspired by the vernacular architecture of the northern coast. The details of the work are very simple yet beautiful and precise. The architecture is clear, unadorned, and free of intellectual anxieties. With this work, the designer has demonstrated that very simple and small works can also present good architecture without complex aesthetic devices.

The greatest merit of the Kordan House by Firouz Firouz is its distinctiveness from surrounding villas. The volumetric composition of the building, though not entirely proportional to its small scale, is very attractive and poetic. The slender horizontal beams at the back of the building, in contrast with the massive, protruding volume of the dome, the chimneys projecting from the building, and the crenellations of the main facade suggest an aesthetic that distances itself from both modernism and classicism. This designer has also treated the interior walls like sculpture, and the details have been designed with artistic fastidiousness.

The Morshedzadeh House by Amirhossein Taheri is not particularly attractive in terms of volume. But it has beautiful and diverse interior spaces. The building appears to have been designed from the inside out. The designer’s attention to climatic issues (air circulation within the building) and innovation within the constraining frameworks of building regulations are valuable. The project is built on five different levels and is therefore complex and attractive in spatial organization.

The Sadri House by Mohammadreza Ghanei and Ali Sheikholeslam is a very interesting project that, were it not for the disproportionate windows of the eastern section and occasionally lightweight details, could have been even more successful. The most important feature of this work is its unique spatial concept. The project’s rectangular elongated site has been well organized, and its elongation—instead of being neutralized by transverse elements—has been emphasized by three corridors and staircases. The corridor and staircase—forgotten elements of residential architecture—have here been valorized and transformed into distinctive elements. The layering of spaces and volumes within one another has been designed in a way that is experiential from within. The walls are full of perforations, niches, and other architectural events, and the interior spaces are diverse, complex, and full of corners for sitting and occupying.

The Navab Safavi House by the same designers again raises the theme of the corridor. It is a renovation and restoration project and thus differs from the other works. The details of windows and railings are exaggeratedly decorative. The matting used in openings, the irregular and polygonal broken ceramics of the floor, the wavy surface of the glass wall of the main facade, the quasi-Art Nouveau design of the railings, and the slender tall columns of the main hall—though repeated in several instances like the floor pattern of the corridor—do not create good proportion and harmony with one another.

Building No. 3 by Mehrdad Iravanian, in the author’s opinion, falls within the category of conceptual art and evades any aesthetic evaluation. The house resembles an artwork in which every component has been shaped in relation to a meaning and narrative independent of the building’s practical concerns and inherent nature. Disharmony and the violation of aesthetics are the very subject of the project. The work is entirely experimental and contains within itself contradictions, the most bothersome of which is the plan, based on a traditional rectangular layout from which the building has been constructed—a decision whose spatial outcome does not yield a comprehensible totality. The project is composed of various spatial and artistic episodes and elements placed together in a strange manner. The work oscillates between the border of slovenliness and the most meticulous craftsmanship, and this very contradiction—also reflected in the composition of unrelated, refined-yet-raw elements—is the building’s principal quality, making it intriguing.