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Excavating the Past: The Ferdowsi Monument by Houshang Seyhoun

conference contribution
posted on 2021-01-01, 00:00 authored by Ali MozaffariAli Mozaffari, Nigel Westbrook
In 1970s Iranian public architecture, there are numerous examples of civic architecture that were designed, each in its own way, to reengage with the past and thus performed a heritage function in the nation’s rapidly developing context. We will focus on the politics of heritage and architecture in Iran as indicated by the architectural production of the period, and investigate the question of what shapes perceptions of the past– how are they conveyed through forms of patrimony and what is the relationship between the two? We will argue that architecture in the case of Iran, as elsewhere, has played a significant role in national modernisation. It has, furthermore, incorporated and perpetuated various forms of nostalgia, citations of past forms, through which design engages with, and affects, the public’s engagement with the past, justifying claims to authenticity and tradition, and performing a civilizational as well as civilising function. This paper focuses on one project--the design by the Beaux Arts-trained architect Houshang Seyhoun for the reconstructed mausoleum of Ferdowsi, the Iranian national poet, and its associated tea house and performance space, and adjacent restaurant. This project will be discussed in the context of other projects that were designed or conceived before the Islamic Revolution (1979) but retained a post-Revolution life. Even the Ferdowsi project was substantially transformed after the Revolution, serving multiple uses before the tea house was transformed into a museum. Commissioned by the Pahlavi government, the development of these projects was suspended during the revolution and ensuing Iran-Iraq war, before being revived in the late 1980s and constructed in much the same form as the original designs, suggesting a form of continuity of “design expectations” across this turbulent period. This paper will discuss these projects in the context of an evolving national imagination, one that was constantly reconstructed and re-imagined – an engagement with the past effected through both a re-evaluation of local traditions and through an interpretation of global connections. In Seyhoun’s project, the past is literally and figuratively excavated, in common with the other Pahlavi cultural projects.

History

Volume

37

Pagination

304-318

Location

Perth, Western Australia

Start date

2020-11-18

End date

2020-11-25

ISBN-13

9780646837253

Language

eng

Publication classification

E1 Full written paper - refereed

Editor/Contributor(s)

Hislop K, Lewi H

Title of proceedings

SAHANZ 2020 : What if? What Next? Speculations on History's Futures, Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand

Event

Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand. Conference (37th : 2020 : Perth, Western Australia)

Publisher

SAHANZ

Place of publication

[Perth, W.A.]