AN ALBUM OF TEHRAN DECO - MODERNS مدرن هاى تهران- آلبوم دكو
The fact is, that local awareness of the Art Deco input (which in conjunction with a rich local Modernism - see numbers 73 and 78 of Memar) had been a primary influence on much of Tehran, has been scant at best - even among those active in the field. It is no surprise then that such loss, as has been routine, has to be suffered. Before dealing with the Art Deco “style” – not “move- ment”, since it had no message, slogan or programme, and claim, which might somewhat explain its success -, re the cover image, perhaps it does not fall squarely into the Deco category, and certainly does belong to the latter Deco – Modernistic phase when the use of white travertine began, during which the fond- ness for curved surfaces was expressed with some difficulty, not to forget that the cement render elevations usual in Art Deco were in part for implementing curves. Back to the cover image, the house that the stair belonged to (see pages 24, 25), had a garden wall that resembled a Mondrian type division system - the result of De Stijl, one of the most radical developments in Modernism and history. However, the cylindrical corner stair volume and the design of the divisions of its tall window, with curves and triangles, is closer to Deco. However, 1- It seemed good for the cover, and 2- I feel that in fact this complexity re- flects the issue well, since in the Memar issues mentioned, Mod- ernistic developments in Tehran were considered, and intermedi- ary, peripheral, and satellite developments to some extent showed the complicatedness of the situation. However, the entrenched
Opposite page bottom left, top and middle right - Konstantin Melnikov - USSR pavilion at the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs - the most radical project in the exhibition. Certainly Melnikov and the system that he was representing at that juncture did not believe in “ decoration ”. Because of the simultaneous presence of widely different tendencies, priorities, and tastes in this world exhibition, it should have a key role in percievng the period.
Mendelsohn - Apartment block on Cicerostrasse, Berlin, 1927 - 28.
Mendelsohn - C. A. Herpich and Sons Fur Store, Berlin, 1924.
Mendelsohn - Weichmann Silk House, Gleiwitz, 1922. ERICH MENDELSOHN
Mendelsohn - Berliner Tageblatt Building, Berlin, 1921 - 23.
tendency of oversimplifying history is also a global issue, with the result that the very best are usually excluded! Therefore, in looking at this “style” in relation to the inherently very diverse Modernism, we should expect a great degree of diversity still, which (at least for me) makes the subject even more absorbing. Although some of the buildings featured do not exist any longer, or, will not, by the time this issue comes out, examining the pre - Late Modern period can be useful, since the forms and the details can always be inspiring and instructive, or (although highly unlikely), might even encourage a different attitude and treatment. But Art Deco no doubt had the main role, even though the buildings are simpler versions, closer to Mendelsohn, Loos, and late van de Velde, with smooth surfaces and curves, not so fussy, granted that Deco decoration schemes were abstract and invented compared to what generally went before it. The Deco decorative spectrum was diverse - including purely geometrical patterns, forms inspired from “primitive” or indigenous cultures such as African and oriental influences, forms derived from ancient non-Greek and non-Roman cultures such as Egypt, the Aztec, and Iran, in addition to those derived from industry, technol- ogy, and science fiction THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ART DECO AND MODERNISM Alhough Art Deco was concurrent with a phase of Modernism (from some time before 1925, the year of the Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs, until the late 1930s), while having many things in com- mon, such as interest in things like airplanes, ships, industrial ob- jects and buildings, Africa and the East, and the indigenous gener- ally, they also had fundamental differences. Art Deco was not at all academic (this, not necessarily a negative aspect - after all, much of Delirious New York IS about Art Deco -, and perhaps the prospect of having a school for training in Art Deco might not be absurd at all, since definitely it would not be boring at least, as is often the case with the schools!, and it would demand very hard work), and while decoration – of the invented kind – had an important role in Art Deco, Modernism refuted it. While Art Deco served luxury, such as in expensive fashion and jewellery shops, high class hotels, and the skyscrapers of New York, Modernism, nobly, was engaged with offering a new way of living and housing in particular, to the middle and the working classes. And their respective exploitations of the in- digenous and eastern cultures differed too: Art Deco focused on the patterns, the colours, and the textures, while Modernism engaged itself with “SPACE”, and the appeal of simplicity and clarity in form. In Tehran, one of the agents of the introduction of Art Deco was Ar- menian Iranian Vartan Hovanissian who had returned from Paris in 1935. He soon acquired the role of the main shaper of the now cen- tral Tehran’s main streets - an example that, significantly, the agents of the Modernization project in Iran, although mainly Armenian
كاتدرال- 1935 مارگارت بورك وايت، عكاس نامى، در حال عكس گرفتن از بالاى برج كرايسلر در سال برجى پله پله اى به طرف داخل و بالا در پس زمينه. + گوتيك كش آمده؟ Margaret Bourke-White photographing from the Chrysler Building in 1935 - stretched Gothic cathedral? + an elegant tower staggered in, and up, in the background.
Iranians were local greatly, and not colonial. Art Deco was fond of implementing curves at the corners, a preference derived among others from ship design. One of the characteristics of the buildings in Tehran which seem close to Deco is the usu- ally many balconies that they have, often with curved corners too. They are also on the whole more pronounced three dimensionally than European Deco, and with al- most always cement render as the external finish. The images of Tehran presented in this issue are of some of these buildings, where we see that even some of the most important places in the city: the bazaar, Lalezar, Baharestan Square, Tehran University, and in fact most of the city, were Deco and Modernist variations or were influenced by them. But the shear physical extent of the spread is also impressive - to the south of the bazaar, and south of the longest east west artery - Enghelab,and
Photographic sources of this introductory section
Emmanuel Bréon and Philippe Rivoirard, 1925, quand l’Art déco séduit le monde, Paris, Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine / Éditions Norma, 2013. Catalogue of the exhibition at the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, October 16, 2013 - February 17, 2014: 5 photo Oscar Graubner / Time Life Pictures / Getty Images; 10 top left: collection Miloš Jurišić; 10 top right: photo Christine Sajours Clause; 11 mid left: DR / collection du docteur Rougier; 8 bottom: Rapport général de l’Exposition internationale des Arts décoratifs et industrieles modernes a Paris en 1925, éd. Librairie Larousse, 1929; 11 mid right: DR / collection Phillipe Garner; 11 top: DR / Archives de la maison Templier; 8 top: Photo Louis-Phillipe Breydel; 10 bottom right: Photo anonyme / SIAF / Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine / Archives d’architecture du XXe siècle / Fonds Expert; 7 lower right: DR; 9 top left: photo Ph. De Gobert; 7 bottom: photo Stéphane Briolant / Archives Francis Lamond. Solange Goguel, Rene Herbst, Editions du Regard, Paris, 1990: 6, 7, 9 top right. Adrian Tinniswood, The Art Deco House, Mitchell Beazley, London, 2002: 10 bottom left and 3rd up left : RIBA Library Photographs Collection, London; 10 left, 2nd up: Country Life Picture Library; 10 mid right: AKG, London. Klaus-Jürgen Sembach, Henry van de Velde, Thames and Hudson, London, 1989: 9 bottom right from ‘Hammacher’, p. 265, 6 top right photo Hans Sibelee, Amsterdam. 1950s and 1960s issues of L’Architettura and Domus. Tehran images, other than noted above, by Kaveh Mehrabaniتصاوير، به غير از موارد بالا، از كاوه مهربانى
in north and east Tehran, and everywhere in fact except the new areas that bear no relevance. Much like many unpreten- tious, unacademic, but profession and experience-based activities that also seek excitement, Art Deco has been quite successful in most places worldwide, with the result that its products are still being used extensively and will continue so into the future, except in situations like Iran, where they are abandoned intentionally, or in places of conflict or system failure. Globally, some of the most luxurious towers, hotels, department stores, and villas, some of the most prestigious state buildings (Modernism can be credited with inherent re- sistance to exploitation by authoritarian systems, while some Art Deco variations did serve fascist governments. However, the complication arises when probably the best scheme for a government has been Giuseppe Terragni’s superlatively Mod- ernist / Rationalist Como Casa del Fascio of 1932-36), public spaces such as metro and train stations, science fiction-like industrial buildings and factories, remains of huge exhibitions (but significantly no churches, which ironically, are significant in Modernist Architecture), and the spectrum of urban entities and identities such as the Art Deco heritage of Miami in the US and many cities in South America and North Africa, and in the younger countries such as Australia, and nearly some- thing everywhere, were and are Art Deco. (the Soviet Union is a different case. Clearly, with the standard set by Melnikov in Paris in 1925 - which explains that radicalism is mindset and belief, not fashion - the USSR was way ahead culturally. However, with the set-back suffered by the Constructivists, the initial neoclassicism developed into what might be considered as Soviet Deco, not seeking as much luxuriousness and exoticism as its European and American counterparts, but with quite impressive results at times). And cinema is almost integral to Art Deco, not to forget the most luxurious cruise ship interiors ever. Deco furniture are collector items, and some of the finest residential or mixed use blocks, some of them huge, almost futuristic in size, and which have shaped many capitals and urban identities, are the result of Art Deco or Deco-Modernism. Art Deco and its associative tendencies formed the last stage where fine craftsmanship was integral to architecture, and only in a number of exceptional situations united with newer mindsets and tendencies, resulting in super- lative manifestations as in the works of figures like Chareau, Ponti, Albini, Aalto, Scarpa, and others. It must be noted that certainly explaining all of the similarities, divergencies, muta- tions, or eccentricities of the tendency necessitates more than one framework, for example, in the cases of Rome’s EUR, or Chareau’s Maison de Verre. However, the difficulty also hints at its complexity and richness, which chronological categoriza- tion, as in the use of the term 1930s, although does help, is not sufficient, since not only did these architectures not perish naturally, but were always ahead of their times, stalled only by adverse circumstances, perhaps temporarily.
Henry van de Velde (1863-1957), The Kroller Müller Museum, 1925-1953. The spectrum of van de Velde’s ouvre is diverse and immensely rich, spanning from near Art Nouveau to close to Art Deco, and finally the Modernistic, demonstrating that style is an irrelevancy to the superlative designer.
COLLABORATORS Amin Farahani - photos of Shiraz house Yas Naghib Hashemi - layout assistant Rozita Behbehani + Trity Mavandadi - photo on page 33 Sonia Navvab - graphics consultant My special thanks go to Soheila Beski, Memar editor, for her perceptivity and generosity.
Left - Rene Herbst - Gouache drawing for a shop window, 1925 - There is an inherent simplicity in the work of Herbst, but not of poverty or being easy on oneself.
Above - Robert Mallet- Stevens, the Villa Noailles in Hyeres, the South of France,1923, for which Ga- briel Guevrekian, who later worked in Iran, designed the garden on Mallet-Stevens’s recommendation.
Left - Gabriel Guevrekian - Model of the Villa Noailles garden in Hyeres, South of France, 1926. Guevrekian also worked in Iran.
Rene Herbst - PLEYEL Pianos in Acajou and chromed metal, 1930.
چند چيز كه مدرنيست هاى مكتبى انجام نمى دادند: پلة متقارن، ديواره هاى پله پله اى، سه پنجرة كوچك دايره اى در نزديكى هم به جاى يك پنجره، در زاويه قرار- 1933 ، نزديك بروكسل- ويلا ديريكز- مارسل لبورين گرفتن يك ديوار بلند، پله گرد بسيار مستقل. داخل اين خانه داراى مصالح و مبلمان گران قيمت دكو مى بود و نه در جهت سادگى انديشمندانة مدرنيست ها. Marcel Leborgne -Villa Dirickz- near Brussels, 1933 - Here, a few things that orthodox Modernists would have resisted: symmetrical double stair, stepped parapets, three portholes; angled plane; free-standing circular stair. The interior would have expensive finishes and furniture rather than the purism of the Modernists.
At the 1925 Paris exhibition as well as at most of the huge “international” (Western) exhibitions of the second half of the 19th C up to WW2 in the 20th C, new tendencies would challenge the old world. The image below and Le Corbusier’s pavilion of the 1925 Paris exhibition represent some of the new tendencies, but compared to Melnikov’s pavilion for the USSR - pre-Stalin - they were not the most radical.
Kay Fisker - the pavilion of Denmark for the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs.
Above - Delagrave residence, rue Sheffer, Paris 1948.
Left - Le Corbusier, pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau at the 1925 Art Decoratifs exhibition.
Top left - Chair by Victor Bourgeois, 1925 - Art Deco was openminded. Both a chair like the one above, and one as above would be acceptable, importantly, as long as they were good, and definitely not boring.
Left - Paul Gosset - Interior of Villa Douce, 9 boulevard de la Paix, Reims, 1928 - 32. Henry van de Velde, Wolfers House, Brussels, 1930.
Dragiša Brašovan, Air Force Central Command Bldg, Zemun,1930 - ٌWhile Modernist tendencies avoided symme- try, it was not a particular issue for Art Deco.
Right - Henri Sajou in his Rio de Janiero atelier next to a model of the “Mesbla” building, 1935.
Ceramic plant holder by Dagobert Pesce. . گلدان سراميك- دگوبر پش
Above and below 2 - Oliver Hill, Joldwynds, Surrey,1930 - 33. This could easily be mistaken for a Meditteranian setting, but it is Surrey, England.
Right - Roger-Henri Expert, school, rue Kuss, Paris, 1934.
Opposite page - Above and top right - Raymond Templier, earings for Brigitte Helm in the film L’Argent by Marcel L’Herbier, 1928. َArt Deco was intimately linked with the cinema of the time.
Opposite page - bottom right - Empire State Building, NY, 1931.
Opposite page - middle left - Gaston Suisse, folding screen New York, 1925.
BLACK was BLACK - Black was a key Deco colour, but had no role, or performed only sporadically with Modernism. There was fondness for stripes too.
.فرم پله پله اى، مورد علاقه آرت دكو بود The stepped form was a favoured Deco device
Piero Aschieri (1889 - 1952), La Casa di lavoro dei ciechi di guerra, a Roma, 1930. Similar to his contemporary, van de Velde, Aschieri has left a complex body of work.