One: A Few Steps to Sar-e Pol. The curb along the water channel, the railing beside the sidewalk, the shop signs. Small and large advertising flyers on the wall, dust gathered at the foot of the wall, the ceaseless sound of cars on the side road, the rolled-up shutters above the shop windows that were once white, the scowl of those standing in line at the bank's ATM. A Matrix-like image of numbers displaying the prices of various goods before one's eyes, strips of fabric tied to tree branches for beautification, an advertising banner that signifies nothing in particular. The struggle of a boy with a school backpack to reach the height of the ice cream shop counter while wrestling with a handful of crumpled banknotes in his hand; ladies with wheeled shopping baskets, casting half a glance at the shops and another half at the appearance of fellow pedestrians, passing by the boy at a reasonable pace. An obscenity heard from a car a few meters away. Two shopkeepers standing in the gap between their shop doors, chatting and smoking. Behind them, the next person presses a hand over a pocket to reassure themselves of the wallet's presence. A driver trying to persuade a traffic officer, attempting to talk the officer out of issuing a fine; an old woman chewing on her chador, waiting for the driver to come. Simultaneously, a great many destination names are called out by taxi stand drivers. Now and then, a blonde woman clearly unaccustomed to wearing a headscarf says something in another language to her companion. Santoor, guitar, flute, and other instruments are played along the route every so often, only to be cut off by the honking of a string of cars that believe it is their turn and want to attract the officer's attention. And those in whose eyes a haze of bewilderment and worry drifts, standing and watching all of this. Tajrish Square is full of overlapping behaviors and multiple spaces throughout the day and night, and because of its unique spatial characteristics, it is a bustling junction—a place that cannot be attributed to any particular social class nor imagined as hosting a single activity. The complexity and multiplicity of its behavioral layers is perhaps its most prominent feature. As a consequence of all this difference and behavioral multiplicity, a great number of fluid micro-spaces form at various points, at different times, generally temporary—they come alive with the onset of a human event or action and disappear when it ends. It is precisely these ephemeral micro-spaces that have shaped Tajrish's identity for us. Those who regard this place as a destination come according to the time when the possibility of that space exists.
Two: Things That Are and We Who Are, Together. A moment of presence and encounter—everyone who passes through here has a personal impression shaped by their circumstances. A kind of degree of belonging to the space that cannot be measured, yet its reflection is visible in their faces, in the way they stand and move, and in the tone of their voice while speaking, which varies at different points. It is as though the imprint of the physical space's effect on the behavior of its visitors can be seen in precisely these indicators. The width of the walkway, the distance from cars, the presence or absence of a water channel between the path and the street, the presence or absence of a tree between a pedestrian and a car, the railing between them and its size, color, material, and every other characteristic, the distance to a shop window, the distance to the taxi stand, the amount of sunlight and its beating down on our heads, the appearance of surrounding buildings when wet with rainwater, the color of the orange lights—the constant presence of red-orange brake lights of cars around, the pavement surface that our bodies come into contact with, other pedestrians with all their characteristics, the smells emanating from various foods reaching our noses—and many other indicators all influence our behavior as we pass through. Many of these indicators impose a state upon the space, leaning toward dictation and near-compulsion, while others lean toward choice. Most of those in whose faces you can read "everything is in its place" are present precisely at those points that lean toward choice. Possibility accompanied by security. For many people these days, security is the primary factor in accepting a space, and this security encompasses all its forms—a relative security that one needs in physical proximity to automobiles, other people, walls, and other present elements. The degree to which a person is seen while standing, the degree to which their conversation with a companion is overheard by others, and in general, the respect for each individual's personal security bubble within a collective urban space—this gives value to the individual and causes a person to become one with the surrounding space, to consider themselves a part of it. This plays a significant role in the structure of that moment's spatial identity. Another matter concerns the points along the way that become empty. An emptying where the individual considers their presence a right. In a public urban space, emptiness is a step toward reaching freedom and possibility within the space. But the difference between a place prepared for people that is empty versus one that is a brick-and-glass building is vast. Such a place and space where possibility, freedom, and choice exist can function like a behavioral breathing passage within the city, presenting the individual with diversity and numerous paths. A personal "white silence" that intervenes within a series of dynamic and sometimes tense behaviors, regulating the course of events—events that are generally collective, or at least situated within a collective context.
Photos by Parsa Jalalian
Three: Ctrl+Shift+i. Imagine the Tajrish sidewalk is an architectural project that, on a black-and-white plan, is marked with a twisted orange volume amid the faint lines of its context—streets and buildings—like an organic creature, something resembling a snake, dancing and in motion. From this very living, animated form, one can discern that it is something complex, possessing abundant potential. Of course, wherever there is potential, with inattention it can fail with equal force. Walking a bit through the orange monster, we find that at every point we encounter a particular speed and behavior. In this, the most important space-making element, aside from ourselves, is the others—the fellow pedestrians. They are far more important and more influential than brick, cement, glass, and the rest. The very fact that we and others coexist in a place that belongs to none of us and yet belongs to all of us causes our behavior before the city to become apparent. At every moment of our journey through this project, we have a certain degree of comfort relative to the space and especially to those around us. In the worst case, we have rapid, mechanical movement along the walkway—which, in fact, is usually the case. If conditions are slightly better, we will probably pause a little, our walking pace will slow, we will spend more time in our orange project, and instead of frowning and hurrying our feet, we will turn to smiling and looking around. At the next level, we can stop, sit, talk, laugh, and do a thousand other things—in fact, we arrive at our most fundamental quality: the possibility of choice, among people and amid human-made materials. At this moment, if interaction and connection with those around us occurs—if we consider this collective action our right—the city happens. If the city happens, then the street and sidewalk are no longer merely routes; they become micro-destinations and cause us to be in the city and to stay—more precisely, to be the city.
Four: The Battlefield. Just as the crowd of people attracts more people, the proliferation of these colorful hunks of metal repels them. Based on the behavior and feelings that form in the mind at the instant of seeing others, we decide whether to leave or not. Very often, because of the people we see ahead in the path before us, we avoid that route. But they did not suddenly appear there; each of them is there seeking something, and every viewer can be attributed to a micro-space of the urban world. This very marking and assessment of their number and behavioral intensity reveals the force and reach of each space. Like a pond upon several points of which stones fall, each creating a wave in the water—these waves, in dialogue with one another and colliding, alongside conditions such as physical characteristics, natural events, and most importantly, people and their behavior, create a field—like a battlefield. Tajrish Square. Was the battlefield a square before all this? Perhaps. What is a battlefield? It is a place where armies converge, stand against one another, and conflict begins. Usually one group attacks while the other defends. Never mind that each group has its own heroes who charge alone into the heart of the enemy and fall with honor. There are rank-and-file soldiers who look alike and individually have no great impact, but whose collective presence strikes terror in the enemy. First-division teams and powerhouses and bottom-of-the-table teams and the smaller ones—all gathered together. Each either agrees with or opposes the other. The people present in the square are their soldiers, too. Although reluctantly, sometimes the referee also steps onto the field, and when the referee sets foot on the ground, corruption and taking sides come along. The cars circling the square do nothing but make noise and tighten the space where things ought to be. Sometimes, too, a glittering army with sharp, silver lances arrives from distant lands—called a shopping center—kicking its way onto the field.
Five: Sidewalk—or Walk(way)? A while ago, during the Nowruz holidays, one afternoon, I was sitting in a fast-food restaurant near Tajrish Square. I had never seen the square from that angle before; it had an unusual quality, partly because of the fewer cars and partly because of the greater number of pedestrians. The pedestrians differed in another way from those who had passed through a few weeks earlier. There was no great rush about them, and it seemed their walking pace had slowed and their looking around had increased. Laughter was heard more often, and the sound of honking and "Hey, move it, you're blocking the road" was less frequent. All of this against the backdrop of a pollution-free blue sky, framed in the yellow window of the restaurant, was before my eyes. I knew this state was fleeting—it would not last ten days—and most of these qualitative features had come with Nowruz and would depart with time. But our hands are not so tied that we cannot imagine it being always like this, or even better. The mere fact that a few people are standing on the sidewalk—whether chatting and socializing or strolling and looking around—causes anyone arriving at this stretch of road to slow down. And if there is any pretext at all, they will certainly stop. Beautiful is the sense of belonging and ownership that the individual feels toward those few meters in those few moments—they do not see themselves as a stranger and with pleasure consider standing there their right, all the while knowing that this place is also the right of the person standing a few steps away. A kind of sharing of an intangible possession accompanied by a touch of optimism—the city! In Tajrish, there are stretches of sidewalk that have been transformed not by the lines and markings of the road, but by the behavior of people, into a different kind of walkway—one where behavior other than merely "going" is possible. I do not know where the word "sidewalk" came from! The fact that it implicitly tells a person to go is a strange thing! If the point were only going, well, you could draw lines and define three proper lanes and be done with it! Perhaps we were never meant to walk along the sidewalk as seriously as we do these days. My point is that no matter how much we widen or narrow the path to guide people into behaving as we wish, one day they will come and behave according to their own needs, not according to our plans! If before anything else we are realistic, and then come to know those around us—our fellow citizens—we will see that these
millions of us have gathered together and do not even have room to stand before one another, and even these human movement channels have been eliminated in many places, reduced to the fine details of asphalt stretching from the road to the foot of the wall (and if it wraps a bit onto the wall, all the better).
Six: Fellow Citizen. From morning to night we pass by one another, and very often during these passings, we act as strangers, take stances against each other—as though we are rivals, sometimes even enemies. At times we wait for a spark to start lashing out at one another. How many of us, when walking on the sidewalk, look at someone approaching from the opposite direction with the gaze of a fellow citizen? Amid this state where our presence seems only to create tension for each other, we occasionally witness behaviors that appear foreign, that strike us as strange—behaviors grounded in smiling, security, and respect, things rarely seen in the streets and alleys. If a few people are standing somewhere on the street, talking and laughing, our attention is drawn to them. It is somewhat painful—as though we have founded everything on tension and distance, and urban laughter has become foreign to us. The laughter of two people standing face to face in the middle of the sidewalk who do not even know each other's names, yet have things to say to one another. One by one, two by two, they stand there minding their own business; some hold a cup in their hand, and yet when their eyes meet, they smile at each other. They do not know one another, but the tension that rages a few meters away is absent between them. A little time passes. Those same strangers who had smiled begin to talk. They talk for a few minutes; they still do not know each other's names. They laugh, distinguishing that stretch of sidewalk from its surroundings. A few moments later, they say goodbye with a smile. As if without effort or intention, they spent those minutes "together." In the end, they never learned each other's names—and knowing the name does not matter; in their minds they had a name for each other: fellow citizen. For a few moments in this beloved, noisy mega-village called Tehran, I saw the city.