As five directors of old consulting engineering firms met in Paris, a friend did an interview asking them about the professional, cultural and vernacular difficulties they have encountered during their professional life. Two photographs accompany the text as souvenirs.
Architecture culture is always indebted to the past and to predecessors near and far. Without an awareness and a study of the foundations laid by the past, today's work will remain unsteady and unstable. One of our friends, taking advantage of an opportunity to meet five directors of old Iranian architectural consulting firms in Paris, prepared two souvenir photographs and brings the readers a brief account of the conversation that took place there.
The architects gathered for this conversation — of whom most readers over forty-five years of age will have memories, and in whose offices many will have worked — are: Abdolaziz Farmanfarmaian and his senior colleague Reza Majd; Mohammad-Reza Moqtader (Modam Consulting Engineers); Ali Sardar Afkhami and Kamran Diba (DAZ Consulting Engineers).
The question put to them was: "In the course of your work in Iran, what professional, cultural and national obstacles did you face? And, as pioneers of the consulting-engineering profession, what advice do you have for clients and for the management bodies?"
At first the gentlemen were taken slightly aback by this unexpected question, and remarked that an answer to such a weighty matter required study, time and reflection. Yet because the shared occasion had presented itself, and because the mood that arises in a conversation between generations is not easily reproduced, talk eventually opened up; together they raised a number of points, of which we offer the following summary:
We were unwilling to admit that we were a Third-World country, lacking the professional and managerial culture, the financial strength and the technology of the West. On the other hand we paid little attention to our own architectural predecessors and even to the work of our colleagues; we pursued, exclusively, an "international" architectural culture which itself had its weaknesses and which more often than not was made up of short-lived models that later met with failure. The image we held of the Western architect as artist and superhuman could in fact apply only to the rare exceptions in the history of world architecture. Unfortunately, the teaching of the schools also drove the architecture student to imitate and copy the works and inventions of foreigners.
Our infatuation with the outward signs of Western technology — without sufficient mastery of its alphabet — caused considerable resources to be wasted in vain. We were not strict enough in establishing safety codes and regulations, in fire prevention and in protection against earthquakes — all of which are essential to the architecture of our time. One of our great mistakes was our neglect of the modern-architecture pioneers of our own country and our failure to learn from them, when their work could have been instructive for us.
As for the clients and commissioning bodies, it must be said that inattention to the quality of the work and the poverty of architectural culture at the level of society have always been a hindering factor. The next problem is the rushed programmes that severely limit the possibility of discussion, reflection and research in architecture.
