An editor's introduction
While Memar's previous issue was being prepared, a number of architects — both from inside and outside of the country — got in touch with the magazine, criticising Mr. Nader Ardalan's article in Encyclopaedia Iranica entitled 'Iranian Architecture in the Pahlavi Period after the Second World War', and asking that their critiques be reflected in Memar. Since Encyclopaedia Iranica is in English and is accessible to only a few, we judged it best to publish a translation of Mr. Ardalan's article first; from this issue on, we will publish the critiques and views received. The translation appeared in our previous issue (Memar 15); in this issue, the letters of Bahman Farmanfarmaiyan and Kamran Diba are presented for the readers' consideration. Mr. Farmanfarmaiyan has also sent his letter, in identical form, to the Editor-in-Chief of Encyclopaedia Iranica.
1. Bahman Farmanfarmaiyan's letter to Professor Yarshater
Dear Professor Yarshater,
As I have stated before, the Iranica article on 'Architecture — Section 8' (pages 251 to 255), titled 'Architecture of the Pahlavi Era after the Second World War', written by Mr. Nader Ardalan, is in no way worthy of an encyclopaedia of Iranica's importance. For (i) the article contains gross mistakes; (ii) it does not at all describe the course of Iranian architecture in this period; (iii) in an article that ought to bear on Iranian architecture and the Iranian architects of the period, the names of Nader Ardalan and the Mandala office are repeatedly cited — though he has personally built no building, or completed none, in Iran.
1.1 — The Marshall Plan in Iran
The author writes: 'The Marshall Plan and the programmes of Point Four, together with the financial, technical, and military aid of the United States and its allies, brought about Iran's first principal contact with the people and culture of the United States. These relations, in the course of a single day, replaced Iran's dealings with France and Germany, which had widened after the First World War.'
But the Marshall Plan was drawn up and carried out for Europe — what does it have to do with Iran? Iran's acquaintance with the people and culture of America came about for other reasons: the entry and stationing of American forces in Iran in 1947; America's fresh oil interests in Iran after the nationalisation of oil; Hollywood films; the increasing entry of American cars; the despatch of Iranian students to America under the Fulbright programme; the return of Iranian graduates from America; and the broadening of trade and technical exchanges. The transformation that the author refers to was not done overnight — it took many years.
4.1 — The Sports Complex
The author writes: 'The Sports Complex built between 1968-1972 by Abdolaziz Farmanfarmaiyan & Associates for the Ministry of Reconstruction and Housing (designer: Nader Ardalan) sought, in its design, to recall the Choghazanbil ziggurat and the Hundred-Column Hall of Persepolis.'
Mr. Nader Ardalan was not at all the designer of this complex; he was a collaborator in the role to which he was referred. The 100,000-Seat Stadium took no inspiration whatsoever from the Choghazanbil ziggurat or from the Hundred-Column Hall of Persepolis — there is no Hundred-Column Hall in this building at all. Furthermore, the client was the Plan and Budget Organisation — not the Ministry of Reconstruction and Housing — and it was built for the Physical Education Organisation.
9.1 — Tehran's 25-year master plan
The author writes: 'The 25-year Master Plan of Tehran, which was approved by Parliament in 1968 ...' But Tehran's master plan was never approved by either chamber of Parliament; it was approved by the prime minister and the responsible ministers. Mr. Nader Ardalan is plainly unfamiliar with the laws and regulations of Iran in that period.
11.1 — A 250% rise in land prices
The author writes: 'As a result, between 1966 and 1971 land prices around these roads rose by 250%.' The rise in land prices in Iran's cities was not the result of master plans for cities; in particular, none of the roads foreseen in the master plans the author names was actually built. The reason for the rise in land prices was the rise in urban population and in people's purchasing power. In Tehran in 1968, a five-year building boundary was set, in order to prevent the city's population from rising further; this was the principal cause of the land-price rise in Tehran. The author should also be asked from what source he drew his official statistic of 250%.
12.1 — A six-month ban on construction
The author writes: 'In 1963, a shortage of materials and the dizzying rise of prices caused a six-month ban on construction in Tehran.' Yet neither in 1963 nor at any time was a law passed by the government banning construction within the legally permitted limits of Tehran. What caused the temporary suspension of many state buildings was the economic crisis and budget shortage.
13.1 — The level of skill of construction workers
The author writes: 'The level of expertise of certain workers — plasterers, masons, tilers, carpenters, and ironworkers — improved markedly, and the number of skilled workers grew.' Contrary to Mr. Nader Ardalan's account, the level of construction expertise had fallen in the 1950s and 1960s. The shortage of working hours against the volume of work did not give sufficient time for apprenticeship in these trades, and industrial wage labour, for economic reasons, was drawing the young more strongly. From his statement, it appears that he himself had no hand in actual building work.
2. The course of Iranian architecture
This article does not describe the course of Iranian architecture between 1945 and 1978. The article contains generalities about housing, traditional music, conferences on architecture, the names of foreign architects who did no work in Iran, and the author's own name. It does not describe the evolutionary course of Iranian architecture in this period.
The author has not studied the principal buildings built in this period or their characteristics, and has wholly disregarded the works and the change in the nature of the architect's profession — which gradually became the profession of the consulting-engineer architect. In the past, the design of state buildings was carried out by the construction departments of various government bodies, and a number of architects were the employees of those departments. After Mr. Aboul-Hassan Ebtehaj became the head of the Plan Organisation, the profession turned into that of the consulting engineer, with full responsibility for design and supervision delegated to him.
It is not mentioned in the article that the body of architects graduating in that period followed International Modern style and were under the influence of foreign schools — particularly the theories of the Bauhaus — and that they brought that style, in practice, into Iran; and that at Tehran University, as at the world's other universities, this style became the basis of architectural teaching.
3. The author's self-praise; the absent architects
In this article, no name is brought of the hundreds of pre- and post-war Iranian architects whose many works remain. Only a small number of Iranian architects' names are cited, while the names of foreign architects who built no building in Iran are inappropriately cited; and the name of Mr. Nader Ardalan himself — who personally built no building in Iran — and of the Mandala office — which completed no building in Iran — appear repeatedly. As if there were no architect in Iran but Nader Ardalan.
An incomplete list of well-known architects whom the article does not even mention, and who did important work in Iran, is the following (with one example of their work each): Eng. Aftandelians: Roudaki Hall. Engs. Mohamedi, Dana, Moghtader, and Andreff: Shiraz University (Modam Office). Eng. Ali Sardar Afkhami: Tehran Theatre. Eng. Boorbour: master plan of Mashhad. Engs. Keyqobad Zafar and Khosrow Zafar: Isfahan master plan. Eng. Bahman Paknia: Tehran University Library. Engs. Hooshang Marjan and Manuchehr Marjan: Hamedan master plan. Engs. Mirnosrat Manqah and Yousef Shariatzadeh: Ettelaat newspaper and Kerman University. Eng. Abdolhamid Eshragh: Krupp HQ; Mashhad International Airport. Eng. Hooshang Seyhoun: Sepah Bank and Tehran Electricity Board. Eng. Kamran Diba: Museum of Contemporary Art. Eng. Yahya Ettehadiyeh (my own partner): the National Iranian Oil Company HQ.
4. The Tehran Olympic Sports Complex
(a) The 100,000-Seat Stadium. The design and supervision of the 100,000-seat stadium was, in 1968, given to the office of 'Abdolaziz Farmanfarmaiyan & Associates' and the relevant contract was signed with the Plan Organisation. At the signing, a budget of 85 million tomans (the equivalent of $11 million) was made known to us, and Khargoosh-Darreh, in the west of Tehran, was set as the stadium's site. Some six years before that, in 1962, I had made a journey to Mexico City and visited the city's university and Olympic stadium, and had been deeply impressed by these buildings.
Given the natural conditions of the site and the topography of the region and the surrounding hills, and the quality of the soil — which had a complete capacity for being compacted and pressed — it became clear to me there and then that, in that nature and in those geographical conditions, the building had to be set at the lowest point in order to be in keeping with its surroundings. I decided to place the bowl of the stadium on the floor of the valley, and to make maximum use of the soil of the place itself in the building. Compacted earth was laid on the inner and outer sides of this bowl, and the inner side served as the seating. Here it was that I drew on the idea of the Mexico stadium. What is certain is that the thought of the Choghazanbil ziggurat and the Hundred-Column Hall of Persepolis never crossed my mind. (Mr. Farrokh Hirbod, my associate, was responsible for setting these views down on the preliminary drawings.)
(b) The buildings for the 1974 Asian Games. The remainder of the Olympic Sports Complex for the 1974 Asian Games was the subject of a separate contract, signed in 1972 between the Ministry of Reconstruction and Housing and my own office. The principal buildings of this section were: the 12,000-seat covered stadium; the indoor pool; the cycling stadium; the indoor practice hall; and the administration and press building. The date of the Asian Games was set firmly for 1974, and around 100 million dollars of work had to be spent in 17 months. Because of the time pressure, we referred the steel structure of the indoor stadium and pool to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM); SOM gave us a warm welcome, and together with my associates Reza Majd and Nader Ardalan, we visited a similar building they had designed in Portland, Oregon.
5. Kamran Diba's letter
Mr. Diba, in a separate letter to the editor-in-chief of Encyclopaedia Iranica and to the editorial board of Memar, points to two key points: first, that Mr. Ardalan has confused his own professional record with the broader course of Iranian architecture in this period, and that he treats the works of others as side-notes attached to the things he himself has done; second, that the names and works of many architects active in the period — including the architect of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (Mr. Diba himself) — are either wholly unmentioned, or are referred to so glancingly that their place in the description of the course of Iranian architecture goes unseen.
