Esmaeil Talaei: Seven Years of Experience

Designer: Esmaeil Talaei. Project team: Reza Daneshmir, Ahad Adish. Client: Yademan Sazeh Co.

The clear, simple volume of the Zaferanieh Multi-Purpose Club, on the corner of Zaferanieh and Eastern Nastaran streets, sits at the eastern end of a trapezoidal site. Although the overall volume of the building is nothing other than two rectangular prisms — one smaller and standing upright inside the other, larger and tilted — the way they are joined to one another and to the site, together with the level changes and the landscaping, have managed not only to provide the various spaces needed by a multi-purpose club but also, by linking and interpenetrating spaces and joining inside to outside, to fulfil the sense of movement and dynamism that the designer was after. This dynamism has also received attention in the detailing of the inside and the outside of the building and in the choice of the kind and colour of materials. The Zaferanieh Multi-Purpose Club is among the first daring departures from the customary order of earlier clubs and cinemas.

Initial designer: Arfaazadeh. Completion and development of the design, landscape and interior architecture: Esmaeil Talaei. Associates of the completion and development design: Ashraf Karimi, Negar Ghoreishi. Client: Municipality of District 17.

The Baharan Cinema-Theatre Complex, with 3,500 square metres of built area — including a cinema-theatre hall, a meeting hall, photography galleries, a video club, a restaurant and a prayer room — has been built on a site of 10,000 square metres in one of the southernmost parts of Tehran, in answer to the cultural and recreational needs of the inhabitants of District 17. The initial design was prepared by engineer Arfaazadeh, and after the execution of the roof and columns — with his agreement and with the undertaking that the original design ideas would be respected — the continuation of the work and the completion of the executive drawings, together with the preparation of the landscape and interior-architecture designs, were entrusted to Dr. Talaei.

The design of traditional street-side cinemas, built with private capital, did not continue after the Revolution; in their place, the building of cultural-and-recreational complexes specifically for the young by the municipality has spread — generally on large open sites and most often in the populous districts of the south of the city. These new complexes — through their very varied function combined with educational and pedagogic aspects, and through the difference of taste and management between a state or municipal client and a private one — have given rise to a fresh experience in the architecture of such ensembles, which deserves a separate study and critique.

Designer: Esmaeil Talaei. Project team: Behrooz Mansouri, Mahtab Kamgouyan. Computer: Shahram Rashidi Haghi.

This complex stands in Shahrak-e Qods (Gharb), Iyvanak Boulevard, between Falamak and Zarafshan streets, and is a change-of-function project. Before the change of function, it was a residential unit of about 650 square metres, which has been converted into a cultural-and-sports complex including a swimming pool, a body-building hall, a sauna and a Jacuzzi. The pool, sauna, waterfall, entrance hall, changing rooms and management offices are in the basement; the body-building hall on the first floor; and the restaurant and Jacuzzi on a mezzanine. The fact that the building has several levels, and the differences in floor heights — turning them into mezzanines that overlook one another — has made it possible to use roof light and to carry that light vertically through every space. The idea of bringing light into the space has been extended by making the floor and the walls and the stairs transparent, and is completed by the oval glass pool of the entrance. In this project, too, like his other works, Talaei has tried, so far as possible, instead of closing spaces off, to let them flow into one another and join one another, drawing the advantages of each space into the other. The change in the exterior elevation of the building has fully reflected the change of function from residential to sports.

Designer: Esmaeil Talaei. Associate: Arezoo Eivazian. Computer: Shahram Rashidi Haghi. Design and execution: Talaei Architecture and Urban Planning Office. Client: Vaghei, Naderan. Site: Lavasan, Imam Khomeini Boulevard, Ettehad Street.

The two Lavasan villas have been designed on two adjoining 750-square-metre lots, with similar, symmetrical volumes and different plans. The basement is given over to a swimming pool and other sports, as well as a sofreh-khaneh (dining lounge) and an independent suite, and the main volume above it — although distributed over the three levels of ground, first and mezzanine — is a single, interpenetrating, connected space. The living and reception rooms and the study are on the ground floor; the bedrooms, with a television room and a tea-pantry, on the first floor; and the mezzanine, between the first floor and the roof, is laid out as an interior īwān commanding all the spaces — recalling the old Iranian shāh-neshīn.

Continuity of horizontal and vertical visual contact, the smallest use of walls and partitions that close off the space, transparency, interpenetration and fluidity of spaces, the flexibility of functions and the possibility of integrating them in particular conditions, and the play of light and shade through the mixing of spaces, are among the principal ideas of the design.

The overall volume of the building is composed of an opaque protective skin and a transparent, light body. The more private spaces are placed in the shelter of the protective skin and beneath the closed parts of the roofs; the public spaces lie behind the transparent body and around the connecting space between the roofs.

In this project a steel structure has been used, with non-vertical columns and panels (at a 20-degree angle), as well as a curved single-piece column-beam to slide light over the inclined surfaces and let it penetrate to the surfaces and spaces below. The use of acoustic and thermal insulation in the exterior walls and in the sandwich panels, and the double-glazing of the transparent surfaces with smoked glass, has produced savings in energy consumption and reduced sound transmission. Openings in the upper part of the building allow natural ventilation when needed. (For lack of space, only the drawings of the western villa have been published.)

Designer: Esmaeil Talaei. Project team: Reza Daneshmir, Saviz Azadi, Arshia Sholeh, Hasan Shahrestani, Vandad Rahbani. Client: National Museum of Iran.

The principal aim of the renovation of the Iran-Bastan Museum is to change the traditional function of the museum and turn it into an exciting, lively space, and to turn the whole ensemble into a popular park-museum that can receive different sections of the public. The design seeks to become a centre for drawing crowds, and — in addition to bringing into being a fresh relation between the existing buildings of the ensemble — to link the surrounding spaces to them as well. The principal elements of this design are: free movement of people in the courtyard between the museums; the possibility of holding exhibitions in the space between the museums; the reorganisation of the National Library space into a library of the National Museum; the rearrangement of the north courtyard for the use of restaurant, café and shop in working and non-working hours; the addition of Park-e Mo'allem to the National Museum ensemble for the realisation of the park-museum concept, through the design and renovation of 2,000 square metres of grounds between the National Museum building and the library precinct; and the introduction of new uses to complement the museum for visitors.

The Talaei-Izadi joint projects

As mentioned in the presentation of Shahryar Izadi's works in Memar 9, Talaei and Izadi set up a joint office between 1990 and 1995 (1369-1374 SH), the fruit of whose collaboration is the Chaplin Cinema-Theatre, the Presidential Pavilion at Mehrabad Airport, and the Vanak Cultural-and-Sports Complex of Tehran. We close the presentation of Talaei's works with two images of the Vanak Cultural-and-Sports Complex. The images well show that the interior space of the Vanak complex is inspired by the tangible forms of the traditional space of the Ganj-Ali Khan Bath.