OF MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE IN TEHRAN
(SOME) SOURCES OF INFLUENCE UPON THE INCLUSION
I was recently informed, to my surprise, - and delight - of the work of Gio Ponti (18 November 1891, Milan – 16 September 1979, Milan) - extant in Tehran. This comes to me with some surprise, principally because Tehran, while it has some fine examples of architectural design from the early century period of Modernist influence, is not known within the annals of architectural archives for its sponsorship of such dramatically significant external - Medi- terranean, - figures. Ponti, was, - and is, - the indubitably seminal and central figure of twentieth century architectural activity within Italy. His dynamic presence - a true Milanese all his life, - in Milan, published not only in his building design - which commenced in the neo-classical style of his first town house, in the Novocento genre he developed alongside Giovanni Muzio, rapidly adopting the role of the Rationalist movement (Libera, Pollini, Figini, Ter- ragni), which marked the onset of Italian international architectural brilliance in the 20‘s, but, when, with the founding of Domus (1928) he commenced the dissemination of an aesthetics of theory and praxis which championed the brilliant figures of the mid-century (1940 onwards) of Albini, Mollino, Gardella et al. His disseminating of their work worldwide - their work, which - like Ponti’s own, - em- phasised its encompassed architecture merely as a single mani- festation of a far wider and inclusive concept of design practice ranging over the production of all types of contemporary functional artefacts and their materials: furniture, lighting, ceramics, sanitary goods, glassware, - in short the entire panoply of cultural neces- sities. This holistic conception of the role of the artist-designer - for many of these figures, - and most certainly Ponti himself, - emerged from a practice including Fine Art, - was the Mediterra- nean response to the innovations of the Bauhaus, but whereas the Bauhaus dissolved as a result of the second World War the Italian ambience thrived before and beyond its tragedies and bred a sec- ond and third generation of highly competent design practitioners. This sustained energy was personified, stimulated, supported and enabled in all senses by Ponti’s work and his magazines (Stile) shortly followed by Domus, emphasising the all-round - published initially from the corrugated Nissen huts of his studio within his garden by he and his filial colleagues during the moments free from their building design practices. (That the magazine exists today is perhaps its greatest accolade.) The house designed by him in Teheran, during the 50’s/60’s, practiced this universal design thesis, being fitted throughout with every detail from his hand furniture, fittings, furnishings, decora- tions - specifically designed for the location, from the floor and wall tiles with their reproductions of his water-coloured pattern designs, the paintings, bookshelves - innovatively placed in front of windows, - tables, chairs, glassware bowls and vases from Venini in Murano, ceramic objects and vessels, cutlery and tableware, lighting fittings of all types - wall, floor, ceiling, situated, - to the constellation of the gardens surrounding the villa-esque domuses. The Tehran house dates from the period in the 1960’s when having established his world stature with his iconic and ever pure Pirelli tower, one of only two skyscrapers in Milan, (1950-56) he was commissioned abroad to build in for Caracas, Venezuela (Villa Planchart), Baghdad, Hong Kong, Eindhoven, and the 1971 Denver Museum. That a client in Tehran had the perception and connoisseurship to commission him is a mark of the refinement of Iranian taste of the period.
1- Libera Pollini Figini Terragni 2- Pirelli 3- Eindhoven 4- Secessionist 5- Loos 6- Hoffmann 7- Wagner
8- Olbrich 9- Quincy Jones 10- Craig Ellwood 11- Richard Neutra 12- Raphael Sorriano 13- Case Study Houses
And it was from this source of international knowledge that emerged the several other examples of Modernist influence and importation within the city: which came to include the European Rationalist influences also emanating from the Bauhaus doctrines often filtered through their later manifestations within the United States following the exile there of the formative figures of Gropius and his student Breuer, and also the generations from the earlier, Viennese Secessionist, source of the Bauhaus, Loos, Hoffman, Wagner, Olbrich et al, which was manifested in California follow- ing the arrival of Schindler in 1914 and his friendship with Lloyd Wright. His timber construction, low profile, Japanese tea-house genre designs for the California sites and climate spawned a whole spate of architectural refinement of the genre - perhaps culminat- ing in the early work of the now celebrated Gehry. The interven- ing architects were however, while unacknowledged in today’s obsession with grandeur, excess, baroque and ‘glamour’, far more urbane and polished in their design for the house. Figures includ- ing Quincy Jones, Craig Ellwood, Richard Neutra, Raphael Sor- riano, were responsible for developing and refinement of the genre and giving rise to the Case Study Houses programme (1945-66), unique in its study of mid-century housing planning and which remains today as the canon of Modernist residential design. That such influences should have fed the building of Modernist architectural innovations and implementations within the Tehran, as the capital city of Iran, goes a long way to dispel any alleged misconceptions of mis-empathy or prejudice with Western values and ideals. The same judgment and sophistication of the national architectural heritage of the country, renowned and admired awe- somely throughout the world is manifest in the adoption of some of the finest genres of twentieth century Western architectural design.
* Jake Morton - London-based designer and artist. Collaboration with Kaveh Mehraba- ni, currently on a future book and design ideas. He describes himself as “an anoma- lous auto-didact hybrid enthusiast (amateur) of 20th century aesthetic manifestation”.
Mirza-ye Shirazi [W] + 4th [S] # 70