Architects and ‘Architecture without Architects’: Modernization of Iranian housing and the birth of a new urban form Narmak (Tehran, 1952)

Cities 45 (2015) 29–40

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Architects and ‘Architecture without Architects’: Modernization of Iranian housing and the birth of a new urban form Narmak (Tehran, 1952) q Rana Habibi ⇑, Bruno De Meulder OSA, Department of Architecture, Urbanism & Planning, KU Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 1, Box 2431, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 11 August 2014 Received in revised form 20 February 2015 Accepted 5 March 2015 Available online 24 March 2015 Keywords: Tehran modernization Middle-class neighborhood Narmak Alternative modernity

a b s t r a c t This essay investigates the Iranian encounter with and influence on the international modernist movement. The reception of international modernist discourses and their weaving into Iranian housing- and city-building practices contributed to the formation of a peculiar, alternative, and indigenous version of modernism that took hold in the 1950s. While such practices were clearly part of the international modern movement, they were simultaneously definable as uniquely Iranian. By analyzing the Narmak quarter in Tehran, this paper explores how the production of a middle-class neighborhood became part of a nation-building strategy. Through processes of moderation and appropriation, the idealistic modernist version was made more practical based on pre-existing socio-cultural characteristics and typological elements. Ultimately, this local version of modernism led to the acceptance of modernism, provoked an urban reaction and produced some unexpected social consequences. Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction Iran, similar to other non-Western countries, underwent a unique modernization process. In contrast to many neighboring countries in the Middle East,1 however, Iran’s push for modernization arose from internal pressures. This autonomous period of modernization—in the context of law and centralized government—originated within Reza Shah’s dynasty in 1921. The central government was formed at a time when radical Iranian reformists pushed for a modern country and a modern society (Abrahamian, 2008; Habibi, 1999; Mirsepassi, 2000). In 1920, Reza Khan (who, one year later, became Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty) declared his position on Iranian modernism to Farangestan Magazine (Aryanpour, 1979):

q The title is taken from the book Architecture without Architect by Bernard Rudofsky. The exhibition of the same name, hosted at Tehran’s Museum of Modern Art (November 9, 1964 to February 7, 1965) was commissioned by the Department of Rotating Exhibitions under the auspices of the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art. Both the exhibition and the accompanying publication were prepared and designed by Bernard Rudofsky, consultant to the Department of Architecture and Design, Rudofsky (1964). ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +32 16 321339. E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Habibi). 1 At this time, most countries in the Middle East were protectorates of France or England. Iran and Turkey were the only exceptions, where modernization was a choice and was not imposed by the Western (colonial) countries (Isenstadt & Rizvi, 2008).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.03.005 0264-2751/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Iran should resume her life again and everything should be renewed. We want to have a ‘modern Iran’ and a ‘modern nation’. We (as the central government) want to convert Iran into a European country. Tehran will be the first modern city in Iran and then it will be used as a model for other Iranian cities. In keeping with the morality of Iran, let us hold this sentence in our minds as our instruction: Iran should be mentally and somatically, outwardly and inwardly European-oriented. Shah’s suggestion is not unlike Baudelaire’s famous exclamation—il faut être absolument moderne (we must be absolutely modern). Planning for urban modernization, however, had already been underway for a long time before 1920. As Madanipour (2006) explains, the first phase of modern planning in Tehran refers to the period before the Second World War, which was preceded by at least three major efforts that set the framework for the city’s growth and development: walling the city (1550s); expanding the walled city (1870s) and building new urban infrastructure (1930s). These initiatives all arose from the government’s ability and desire to instigate change and to shape the city through large-scale infrastructure projects (Madanipour, 2006, s. 433). Tehran’s ‘regional’ modernization act of 1930 superimposed a grid of Hausmannian boulevards on top of its vernacular urban fabric. Most of Tehran’s physical modernization concerned the establishment of boulevards and the construction of two- and

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Fig. 1. Some members of the Association of Iranian Architects Diploma and Parliament representatives at the grand opening of Narmak. Source: Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani (1955): 1-1.

three-story, single-family houses for elites inside the old city of Tehran (Habibi, 1999; Marefat, 1988; Mokhtari, 2011). However, the most significant part of the modernization process, which took place between 1921 and 1941, focused on institutional renewal, the establishment of a new bureaucratic system, and the introduction of new habits, industries, etc. Examples of such changes include: the obligatory registration of documents and properties (1926); the establishment of a uniform dress code for men (1929); the demolition of the city’s old fortifications and westward urban expansion (1932)2; the opening of a cement and textile factory in Rey (1933); the building of Bank-e Melli (the National Bank) and Tehran University (1934); and one of the most radical shifts in local customs—the ‘unveiling’ of women (1935) (Habibi, 1999). The actual emergence of modernization in its physical form and the development of the city beyond its old walls occurred during the 1940s, when new middle-class neighborhoods were designed and constructed. The modern middle class included government officials, small landowners, teachers, and non-bazaar merchants (Gastil, 1958). The development of new (sub)urban neighborhoods in Tehran through the Seven-Year Urban Development Plan, which included experiments with low-cost housing, was partly due to a clear desire by the new middle class for new type of housing. These fully equipped, low-cost neighborhoods generally offered an improved standard of living to residents; they signaled the start of an urban development policy for Iran (NY: OC inc report, 1949). The Iranian variation on modernism became particularly articulated in the decade that followed, when significant programs for the construction of middle-class housing were initiated. These programs were clearly a strategic element in Iran’s nation-state (re)building and modernization projects. Similar to Turkey, Egypt, and others, Iran’s rebuilding of the Iranian nation-state was expected to result in a modern nation (see Bozdogan, 2001; Chahichian, 2009), and its ambition was to become the equivalent of model European nations, such as France and Germany. Turkey had also taken a similar approach to urban development, with

2 By 1932, the population density had doubled to 105 persons per hectare, and onethird of the population lived outside the walls. In addition to demographic pressure, the arrival of motor vehicles and the regime’s desire to control the urban population and to modernize urban infrastructure led to a substantial transformation of the capital, in which it was ‘‘radically re-planned and re-built.’’ (see Madanipour, 2006, s. 433).

the introduction of large middle-class neighborhood projects. The Levent neighborhood in Istanbul, for example, designed by Kemal Ahmet Aru, was constructed in the 1950s,3 and it bears resemblance to Namrak in Tehran. Housing had become a tool for social and urban modernization—an agent of change for Yousef Abad, Nazi-Abad and Kuy-eKan (Shahr-e-Ziba), and as such, it was high priority on reformists’ agendas. Iranian architects, like ‘‘most modernist architects in the world, shared the moral pretension of advancing social and political goals through practices ranging from the design of the house and the street to the planning of the whole city’’ (Lu, 2012). In Iran, like in many countries, the desire for innovation by architects and the desire to rebel against tradition were a reflection of and intertwined with political movements, in which housing was a central issue. In this way, modern housing projects marked clear ruptures with conventional housing production and were instrumental in the creation of Iran’s modern middle-class society. Beginning in 1952, the Narmak quarters were the second of the housing initiatives in Tehran (the first being Chaharsad Dastgah in 1946). While there were other neighborhood housing projects built in the 1950s, including Yousef Abad, Nazi-Abad and Kuy-e-Kan (Shahr-e-Ziba), Narmak was the first to apply contemporary ideas regarding neighborhood amenities and new housing-construction technologies. In terms of scale, Namrak was also the first largescale, new neighborhood in Tehran; it was called Narmak—‘the new city’—for this reason (see: Bank-e-Sakhtemani Journal, 1954). A close examination of the Narmak case demonstrates how modernization, as a global process put into practice locally, was subject to social, cultural and geographical realities. The ‘pure’ concept of modernization became contextualized and moderated by the existing social structure, architectural elements and realities. At the same time, the Iranian urban modernization process, as in the case of Narmak, was similar to the modernization process experienced by other non-Western countries. These processes often ‘‘include both an ‘internationalism from below’ and an extension of the enlightened cosmopolitanism of multiplicity’’ (Crinson,

3 Architect and planner Kemal Ahmet Aru used the model of the Garden City as an inspiration while building new neighborhoods for middle-class families. He and his team looked for standard household sizes suitable for raising families in lush, green areas. See: Arefi (2014) Deconstructing Placemaking – Needs, Opportunities and Assets, New York: Routledge.

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2012); urban modernization forces a sudden rupture with the past in most non-Western countries. The Narmak project was intended to be absolutely modern, but vernacular elements found their way into this new, modern world. In this case, the vernacular discriminately co-operates with and infiltrates the modernization process, and a new form of modernity emerges from the dialectic interaction. It is not an accident that one speaks of the Modern movement. As a movement, modernity inevitability incorporated more variations as it expanded (De Meulder, 2006); modernity is, therefore, multiple (De Meulder, 2005; De Meulder & Plissart, 2002). The co-existence of an imported modern culture with indigenous cultural elements created a ‘third space’ and generated a new kind of livelihood: Third Spaces constitute the discursive conditions of enunciation that ensure that the meaning and symbols of culture have no primordial unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be appropriated, translated, re-historicized and read anew . . . thirdness is part of an unceasing process or movement that is at once inbetween and beside the ‘polarities’ of conflict, unsettling any essentialist or foundationalist claim to the ‘originary’ that they make. [Bhabha, 1994, s.37] Iran, as an ancient country, evidently had a long-standing tradition of confrontation with new cultures and developed a unique approach to the translation of new cultures, as Milani describes in paraphrasing Herodotus: ‘Persians freely adopted aspects of other cultures, but always did so only after creatively transforming what they wanted to adopt into something that was uniquely Persian’ (Milani, 2004, s.26). In the case of Narmak, Iranian traditions formed an almost compulsory guiding image that contrasted with Iranian reformists’ strong drive for modernization. The crystallization of this contrast reshaped and redefined the meaning of ‘modern’ in Iran, introducing a new, uniquely indigenous version of what it means to be modern. Reformers From inception to realization (1952–1964), the Narmak project moved alongside socio-political controversies. The inception phase coincided with the nationalist movement, led by Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Musaddeq,4 which pushed for the liberation of the Iranian oil industry from British control. The construction of neighborhoods for the new middle class was high on Musaddiq’s agenda. In 1951, the Iranian parliament approved a law that allowed for the construction of two neighborhoods in Narmak and Nazi-Abad in the Southern area of Tehran. In 1953, however, there was a coup initiated by the Mohammad Reza Shah regime against Musaddeq, which, in retrospect, seemed to go hand-in-hand with the opening of a major gateway to American consumerist culture. 4 The charismatic Musaddeq was prominent in national politics since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. He was best known for championing two major causes: strict constitutionalism at home and an equally strict policy of ‘negative equilibrium’ abroad to ensure independence from foreign domination. He denounced both the 1919 Anglo-Iranian Agreement and the 1945–1946 oil negotiations with both the Americans and Soviets. He took up the cause of oil nationalization, demanding that the government should take over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. He insisted that Iran had the inalienable right to have full control over the production, sale and export of its own oil resources. His movement, called National Front (Jebe’ehe-Melli), contained a broad spectrum of middle-class parties and associations. With middle-class support, Musaddeq was able to mobilize a mass movement calling for nationalization. For him, ‘the nation reigns supreme,’ and supporting the middle and working classes was at the top of his social development list. For more information, see Abrahamian, 2008.

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The realization of Narmak necessitated the establishment of multiple organizations and laws. Some were completely new and specifically created with the development of Narmak in mind, while others had existed previously and were modified to fit new conditions. The Association of Iranian Architects Diploma (Anjoman-e-Architect-ha-ye-Diplom-e-ye-Iran, AIAD) and the Construction Bank (Bank-e-Sakhtemani) were the two main organizations to participate in the project (Fig. 1). The AIAD consisted of Iranian modernist architects, whose senior members studied in Europe (Ecole des Beaux Arts de Paris and the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Bruxelles) and whose junior members were the first generation of graduates from the Faculty of Fine Art (Honar-ha-ye-Ziba) at Tehran University. The European-trained architects were mostly students who, at Reza Shah’s command, had been dispatched to Europe in 1928 (Habibi, 1999). The Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Tehran was, as its name suggests, based on the beaux-arts system in Paris under the supervision of Andre Godard in 1940. Graduating architects earned the title of ‘Architect-Diploma’ to distinguish themselves from traditional craftsmen called Mi’mar.5 The AIAD was formed by no more then 38 architects under the presidency of Key-ghobad Zafar and vice presidency of Ali Sadegh. Other architect members included Abbas Adjdari, Manouchehr Khoursand, Naser Badie, Vartan Hovanesian, and Iraj Moshiri. These architects returned from training in Europe to their home country with a single mission: to modernize Iranian cities. The ‘‘sorrowful’’ urban situation in Iran (Moshiri, 1946) was deemed unacceptable, so they set out to find suitable solutions. They advised governments and municipalities (including Tehran) on ways to build ‘better’ cities. They introduced international principles of building, made connections with foreign cultural associations and attended international conferences.6 They opened an architecture library (mainly with donations from Italy and France), organized exhibitions (e.g., on English architecture), and published journals, such as Architect, first released in 1946. The content of the journals is emblematic of the time, clearly articulating their reformist objectives: detoxify Iranian cities, diagnose their weaknesses, and discuss the best solutions (Khursand, 1946). As self-declared technocrats in line with European modernism, they proceeded to criticize the conventions and practices of traditional Iranian city building. Not surprisingly, their proposals to transform the city (and society) echoed Western modernism. For instance, the declaration by AIAD member Vartan Hovanesian (1946, s.7) resembles Le Corbusier’s thoughts on ‘modernism as great epoch’7: In recent years, the breeze of modernism has transformed Iranian social life and has created a Spirit of Modernity in people – a spirit that is perfectly visualized in architecture. Soon, Iranians will encounter modern problems and their survival is dependent upon the resolution of these problems. This era of the 20th century has pushed people to make greater efforts, and their impacts will be seen in all aspects of social life. We have a responsibility towards future generations and we should shoulder our responsibility in the best possible way; if we stick to our traditions and consequently fail to take full responsibility, we shall prove to be worthless, meaning that we are unable

5 In the first volume of the Journal of Architects, the editor, Iraj Moshiri, discussed explicitly why the term ‘Architect’ was chosen instead of the traditional name ‘Mi’mar.’ see: (Moshiri, 1946). 6 In 1948, Ali Sadegh and Iraj Moshiri from the AIAD and Iraj Shams from the Municipality of Tehran attended the International Union of Architects (UIA) congress in Lausanne, Switzerland (Moshiri, 1946). 7 A decade earlier, Le Corbusier described the modern period: ‘‘A great epoch has begun. There exists a new spirit. There exists a mass of work conceived in the new spirit. It is to be met with particularly in industrial production . . . our own epoch is determining day by day its own style’’ (Heynen, 1999).

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Fig. 2. Narmak grid, boulevards and common gardens. Source: Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani (1955): 1-1.

to take care of our progress and excellence and we fail to have an adequate understanding of the spirit of the time. AIAD represented the modernist movement in Iran and simultaneously enjoyed the confidence of the (modernizing) state in planning for development. In 1952, the state granted the organization the responsibility to design low-cost housing for Tehran’s new middle class. For the construction and financing of the Narmak project, AIAD cooperated with Bank-e-Sakhtemani. The new state bank was established through investments from the Ministry of Agriculture and the Iran Insurance Company. Its foundation was concurrent with the 1952 approval of the ‘registration of dead-lands’ (Habibi, 1999). According to this new law, based on Islamic regulations, the person who resuscitates ‘deadlands’ becomes the owner of the land (Tabatabayi, 1962). By surveying and zoning vast areas of dead-lands, Bank-e-Sakhtemani assembled a vast land bank suitable for large-scale, mass-produced housing projects, such as the one in Narmak. The formation of this relationship between the association of architects and bankers as an executive institution for public housing was one of the first steps towards mass housing modernization in Tehran, making it unique among non-Western countries. A modernist vision for a middle-class neighborhood | Narmak In 1954, AIAD published a series of journal volumes about Banke-Sakhtemani activities and developments, appropriately called the Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani.8 Inevitably, these journal volumes 8 The editor of the Bank-e-Sakhtemani Journal was Naser Badie; it published nine volumes between 1955 and 1960.

became a stage for architects to express statements on and manifestations of modern urbanism. Some volumes of the journal were dedicated to the Narmak project, which was showcased as the poster child for modern Iranian urbanism. The main objective for the architects of Narmak was to design a modern city outside of Tehran’s old city by following the latest planning principles and modern regulations of urbanism (Khodayar, 1955). ‘Modern’ and ‘European’ seem to be interchangeable notions in the language used in the journal, as expressed in an article by Khodayar (1955, s.2): Narmak’s New Modern Town was constructed on the east side of Tehran with respect to all modernist regulations in urbanism; Narmak, which was once a wasteland and devoid of residents, is quickly changing into a beautiful modern city . . . Narmak is a perfect example of Iranian architectural taste . . . This city will have all the requirements for modern life, such as a cinema, a theatre, a hospital, a playground, water and power resources, and land, and, devoid of residents, it is quickly changing into a beautiful, modern city. The town plan for Narmak occupied an area of 507 ha and foresaw 25,000 residents living on the east side of the old city of Tehran. According to the proponents of the project, Narmak took advantage of all design and construction principles of modern urbanism. The layout proposed a grid with large green boulevards that ran east to west and included 119 common gardens allocated to each respective block (Fig. 2). The block layout resembled the typical chaharba¯gh (four-quarter gardens), an archetype in Iranian traditional urbanism—a rectangle divided to four quarters of trees and flowers and linked together by stream of water and pathways. The repetition of this pattern provided a linear form and an urban structure. The architects of Narmak, however,

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Fig. 3. Three main realms: public facilities, urban infrastructure, and housing. Source: Author, based on the model image published in Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani (1955): 1-1.

adapted the chaharba¯gh pattern to the modern design by locating houses (instead of gardens) on the outside and designating the vast empty space in the middle as a public green space. The pattern of chaharba¯gh was also ‘gridified.’ At first sight, this use of a grid is not so different from ‘‘the standard 1950s grid of Ecochard’’ (Von Osten, 2010)—a universal tool for rapid and large urban expansions. However, a second look reveals variations to the grid used to accommodate differences in block size as well as variations in the way in which north–south boulevards are used to shift the positions of east–west streets. Green boulevards had been used as an instrument of urban renewal by Reza Shah since the 1930s. Following the Law of Street Development (1933) and the decree on the new map of Tehran (1937), the first Haussmann-like boulevards appeared on the north side of Tehran (Abrahamian, 2008).9 Soon after, they were adopted as one of the main instruments of modernization and were replicated throughout the city. In Narmak, the north–south and east–west boulevards deliver the main frame of the housing estate and integrate it with the (expanding) city. It is remarkable, however, that only one east– west boulevard and one diagonal boulevard pass completely through the neighborhood. All other boulevards end in one way or another inside Narmak, sometimes simply as dead ends. In other cases, they lead to important civic destinations or landmarks. This deviation from the standard grid results in a system for Narmak that mediates regularity and deviation, continuity and interruption, and integration into the global identity, flow and destination mechanisms of the city. Globally, modernist architecture, as both a symbol and an organizational model, constituted the concept and the environment of the ‘new modern man.’ Modernist housing and urban planning projects represented and formed a mechanical (industrial) way of living, working, and consuming (Von Osten, 2010). Because the mission of reformers was to construct a modern society by providing housing to the middle class, a functional city had to be configured with the capacity to accommodate the changing needs of (the new) modern man: work, leisure, health,

9 Ervand Abrahamian, in his book, A History of Modern Iran (2008), writes: ‘‘A great advocate of urban renewal, Reza Shah pulled down old buildings and constructed government offices, expansive squares, and Haussman-like boulevards. He named avenues after himself and placed his statue in the main squares.’’

education, and a proper house. Narmak’s designers responded to these needs by introducing three main realms: public facilities, urban infrastructure, and housing (Fig. 3). The large green square in the center of Narmak was planned to house three towers for administrative, municipal, and commercial functions, while the rest of the public facilities, such as schools, mosques, hospitals, and orphanages, were to be situated along the east–west green boulevards. A large park on the west side was designated as a leisure zone and would accommodate iconic buildings, such as the Museum of Modern Art,10 a cinema, and a sports hall. North Narmak would hold utilities: the power plant and water reservoir.11 The grid pattern and green boulevards weaved this multiplicity of functions together. The logic of the grid and the accommodation of various social functions in specialized areas were all manifestations of modernism; however, housing was the main exhibition. Two intersecting north–south and east–west boulevards composed the neighborhood’s main thoroughfares. Up to six 8-m-wide deadend alleys with a large central common garden formed the interior configuration that provided a quiet ‘comfort zone’ for families that complimented the businesses on the main thoroughfares (Khodayar, 1955) (Fig. 4). Each block contained approximately 70 housing units; an elementary school was designated every three or four blocks. Other facilities were centrally located along the three main boulevards. These family- and community-oriented facilities were meant to define a new vocabulary for modern neighborhoods in Tehran. The integration of a modern grid with the archetype of chaharba¯gh was part of an enculturation process. This process, as Randlof David explains, designates the conscious and selective adoption of vernacular and indigenous elements from the local culture in order to lend a touch of familiarity to something that is

10 In the proposal, the Modern Art Museum of Narmak has an exhibition salon for 200 painting panels and 500 sculptures. It also has an amphitheater for an audience of 500. It is located in a 150  150-m area with 22,500 square meters; it is 5 stories tall, and each is connected by a staircase (Haj-Dayi, 1955). 11 In northeastern Narmak, in the forest of Shian, a water well was drilled and later converted to an aqueduct as the main water source for the neighborhood. For the first time, armed concrete was used in the aqueduct so that the amount of water consumption in summer and winter became manageable, and an aquifer was reserved for droughts. Above the aqueduct and its channels, 20,000 trees were planted, becoming the forest of Shian (Khodayar, 1955).

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Fig. 4. Comfort zone for families. Source: Author, based on Narmak maps of National Cartographic Center, Tehran, Accessed April 2012.

brought in from the outside (David, 2012). The process of enculturation was acceded by the architects themselves in the design phase, almost as a compulsory act according to existing archetypes. In the design of housing units, however, architects chose to import the modern model and saw no need to adapt it to the Iranian context. The house was, after all, the symbol of modernity and a tool for social modernization. The design of the housing units was based on the imported French prefabrication system, KALAD. This concrete prefabrication system was positioned as a ‘housing factory,’ with the capacity to produce one house per day (Khodayar, 1957). The architects proposed one-story, semi-detached homes with a private yard and typologies of two, three, and four rooms, constructed with 1.10  4.40 m panels (Khodayar, 1957) (Fig. 5). According to Bank-e-Sakhtemani, KALAD was not only a system for housing standardization but also a ‘‘representative of the beautiful and affordable modern house’’ (Khodayar, 1957). KALAD was first tested in Bari, Italy, a city that faces a similar level of risk for earthquakes as Tehran does (Khodayar, 1955). The Bank-e-Sakhtemani team used the same KALAD housing unit plan that was used in Bari, even though Bari is on the sea and Tehran is in a semi-arid climate. Even chimneys made their way to Narmak. KALAD’s housing type was a two-bedroom home with living and dining rooms separated by a service area (Fig. 6). The service area included a kitchen and bathroom, with a hallway linking the spaces together. This functional

division (between daytime activities in the living and dining rooms and nighttime activities in the bedrooms) also applied to the volume of the respective rooms. Narmak architects used this same general layout in variations of two-, three-, and four-bedroom units (Fig. 7). In this way, modernist architecture—as a way of building, a knowledge product, a style-of-life consumer item, and above all, a symbol of modernity—traversed national boundaries in the form of prefabricated housing designed for the middle class (Lu, 2012). Narmak became a model used in many other new middle-class neighborhoods, such as Nazi-Abad south of Tehran. Nazi-Abad’s design used the same grid logic and common gardens as Narmak (Fig. 8). Advertisements in the Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani advised those applying for land ownership in Nazi-Abad to visit the Narmak houses first and then order their selections (Maleki, 1955). After visiting Narmak, the Indian ambassador in Iran, Tarchand (1955, s.35), declared: Low-cost houses in Narmak and Nazi-Abad were built in seven months without government support and by prepayment of land purchases. Single-family houses with two, three and four rooms were constructed according the latest style of European housing. Low-cost but beautiful and livable housing is a good example for private investors to learn how to invest their money in the construction of low-cost housing.

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Fig. 5. KALAD concrete panels. Source: Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani (1956): 2–4.

By 1957, Bank-e-Sakhtemani had constructed the gridded neighborhood, green boulevards and 370 prefabricated KALAD houses (Fig. 9).12 A yard: contextualization of modern While architects preached the universal applicability of modern architecture, Iranian dwellers had other things on their minds. Eventually, the requests of Narmak’s middle-class homeowners ended up in the Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani; a pool in the yard for washing clothes and rugs and a stairway from the yard to the roof, designated as an alternate sleeping space in the summer, topped the wish list (Sarafian, 1960). The owners desired an extension of the house from the inside to the outside; modern neighborhoods were missing the outside spaces that traditionally structured daily practices of domesticity. Mina Marefat emphasizes the crucial role of the yard (hayat) in traditional Iranian houses (1988): The hayat was landscaped as a small chaharba¯gh (literally, four gardens) with trees and flowers and brick paving in geometric patterns around a small, central pool of water. Sleeping outdoors in the hayat or on the roof was customary in the warmer seasons when the courtyard was sprinkled with water in the evening for use as an outdoor room. In Persian houses, central to the courtyard was the hawz (pool), which was the main source of the daily household supply of water for washing, cleaning, and, sometimes, bathing children. The hayat was a multi-purpose space, both a private family center and a place for entertaining visitors. The home designs with gardens published in the Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani (Fig. 10) were almost certainly responses to homeowner requests for outside spaces. The design shown in Fig. 10 places the international modernist housing ideal next to a very elaborate plan for the spatial organization of the outside space. The picturesque garden does not merely complement the house; it is a core element of the Iranian home. In this regard, 12 KALAD houses had a short lifespan and were replaced by brick houses; however, the name of the neighborhood’s 270 units remained ‘KALAD.’

the plan is an assemblage of two dwelling concepts, one centered on the exterior space (which is very elaborate in the drawing) and another as a functional collection of interior spaces. The two co-exist in the drawing as two separate domains, both elaborated with their own sets of logic and without too many relationships between them. The plan does not choose, nor does it compromise or mix. It simply provides both domains side by side: the house as a representation of the international modernist paradigm and the garden as a customized, localized space to meet the traditional needs of homeowners. Consequently, the design has a hawz (pool of water) linked to the house by a stone pathway. The pool was meant to correspond to the traditional design in which the home is defined by the pool’s centrality. The staircase on the house’s facade connects the yard and roof. As mentioned above, the yard was used as a second living room and was connected to the roof, which was used as an alternative bedroom; the staircase offered a vertical connection between the semi-public space and the semi-private space. Both the hawz and staircase, as symbols of home, family and ‘a familiar subject,’ were used to contextualize the modern house. These elements were added to the exterior spaces of the KALAD houses. Most of the spaces in the houses were used by residents as multi-functional spaces, despite the fact that the architects provided specialized labels to rooms (living rooms, bedrooms, etc.) that were designed for small, modern nuclear families. The reality of the large, extended Iranian family, however, meant that all spaces labeled as living rooms, bedrooms, studies, and so on were reinterpreted and personalized to be used as multi-functional spaces.

Builders: negotiating the modern Through a policy change and the establishment of the Housing Ministry in 1964, Bank-e-Sakhtemani ceased to be responsible for the development of Narmak. This was concurrent with a dramatic rate of urban population growth (25.4%) in Tehran (Maghsoodi Tilaki, Abdullah, Bahauddin, & Hedayati Marzbali, 2013). By 1958, Bank-e-Sakhtemani had built roads, common gardens and the infrastructure of the grid, 370 housing units, several shops, and schools (Barmak, 2013). The theatre, Museum of Modern Art, and

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Fig. 6. KALAD prefabrication model in Bari, Italy, used in Narmak, Tehran. Source: Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani (1956): 2–4.

sports hall had yet to materialize. The KALAD housing factory suffered due to a lack of technicians and high production costs; eventually, it stopped production altogether. The state sold the rest of the vacant lots and assumed the responsibility for finishing the construction of public facilities. In this way, builders and immigrants in Tehran carried the project of modernization forward. Builders (mostly Mi’mar, or in the local dialect, ousta) and immigrants constituted an informal agency to

undertake construction on their own homes. In an unofficial agreement between the builder and the owner of the land, the builder did not have to buy land to start construction or have much capital available in advance. Instead, an agreement would be reached with the landowner to use the plot and to provide the house. The owners sometimes divided their lands into two or even three parcels, kept one lot and sold the rest. A comparison of aerial maps from 1954 and 1962 clearly shows how 200–500-square-meter lots

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Fig. 7. KALAD prefabrication model in Narmak, Tehran. Source: Author based on maps published in the Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani (1956): 2–4.

Fig. 8. Left: Nazi-Abad. Source: Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani (1956): 1–2.

37

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Fig. 9. Right: Narmak in 1957. Source: National Cartographic Centre, Tehran, Iran.

were divided into 50–100-square-meter lots (Fig. 11). The ‘private ownership law’ (1906) established by constitutional revolutionaries to counter 19th-century landlords opened a new market not only for reformers but also for ‘all’ builders. Immigrants who came to Tehran to work in construction-related fields constituted the first wave of builders in Narmak. For construction, they maintained the idea of the original housing model but used a mix of structural walls and an iron skeleton with local materials. The white unadorned facades, rectangular outlines, wide openings, and flat rooftops were reminiscent of modernist principles. These new builders played a significant role in Narmak’s further development (and in the development of greater Tehran). They offered owners two-story houses with small front and back yards. The prevailing typology was three large bedrooms, together with living and dining rooms in an L-form, and a kitchen. These changes, however, did not sit well with modernist architects. The French architect Rossanne remarked after he visited Narmak in 1960 (Adjdari, 1956, s.25): It is a pity! This new town should have been constructed exactly according to the master plan and should not have been abandoned like that . . . construction permission was granted to people without controlling whether they were keeping to the

master plan catastrophe.

or

not.

Such

disorder

caused

a

terrible

However, the so-called catastrophe accommodated the daily needs of the people living there. This raises questions: does this post-project development embody cultural beliefs and attitudes, and does it evoke a vernacular architecture? Regardless, what began as state-initiated modernism soon gave way to a version produced by local market forces, integrating traditional crafts, migrant labor capacities, land speculation, and local business practices. In Narmak, landowners and builders developed a new urban landscape that inscribed itself in the modern grid. Over time, the division and proportion of housing lots changed fluidly depending on socio-economic needs, while the gridded green boulevards and common gardens remained the same. Within this stable grid, a hybrid fabric was developed that combines the modern and the vernacular, the formal and the informal, the designed and an ‘architecture without architects.’ This fabric, co-produced by architects, landowners and inhabitants, houses the so-called indigenous modernism. It introduced an ‘alternative modernism’ with the ‘‘durability and versatility, characteristic of vernacular architecture’’ (Umbach & Huppauf, 2005, s.3) and the simplicity

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39

Fig. 10. Traditional-Modern House. Source: Construction Bank Journal (1957): 1–2.

Fig. 11. The left column shows the KALAD houses and the land division made by Bank-e-Sakhtemani in 1954, and the right column shows the land division made by the people and houses by builders in 1962, based on Narmak maps of National Cartographic Center, Tehran, Accessed April 2012.

and functionalism of modern architecture. This vibrating couplet of modern and vernacular defines a hybrid space in which Iranian’s version of modernity took shape. Conclusion The modernization process in Iran was fueled by actions undertaken by two main groups: reformers and citizens who

experienced and responded to this reformation. The process began with an ideal modernism and notion of modernization, which were embraced by reformers (whether government agencies, architects, planners, or bankers) and which provided a clear break from the past. At the same time, people who experienced the rupture with tradition attempted to find a middle ground between their own (original/traditional) way of life and the international way of life. This compromise between the image of the modern ideal and the

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practice of ‘everyday life’ resulted in an alternative modernity, where the modern vocabulary was adapted and applied to daily life. Indigenous interpretations of an imagined ideal and a multiplicity of other experiences of modern life were reflected in spatial forms and cultural expressions, which, over time, produced new conventions (Hosagrahar, 2012). The neighborhood of Narmak is an emblematic example of state-produced, middle-class housing because it demonstrates the two faces of Tehran’s modernization: (1) reformers, who were state functionaries, bankers, and architects who used their authority and propaganda to initiate modernization; and (2) the residents who lived and experienced modernization as it was presented to them, the ‘‘non-elite population who appears as an active agent of social and economic change’’ (Heynen, 1999). In the first instance, Narmak presents a case in which housing reformers (specifically architects and bankers) and landowners learned to interact and work with each other and others through negotiation. This negotiation resulted in a novel type of housing: an adaptation of modernist vocabulary by way of vernacular Mi’mars. However, Narmak remains an example of incomplete modernization. Housing reformers could not always follow through with their promises or meet the expectations of residents. They began with an idealistic vision, but through compromise, they ended up demonstrating the realistic projections of the people. Narmak demonstrates another form of modernity that is not a less-perfect, incomplete version of an idealized modernity but rather one that grows and changes according to its own trajectories, discourses, and social institutions. Narmak also serves as an example of double modernization in Tehran, uncovering coexistences such as those of the architect and craftsman, prefabrication models and local materials, the bank as a system of housing construction and state benefit, and individual housing projects as a private benefit. Ironically, Narmak began with an architectural master plan that grew into ‘architecture without architects.’ At the same time, the trajectory of Narmak demonstrates how urban modernization in Tehran was shaped by Iranian culture, contextualization and the translation of the ‘imported modern’; it was not simply the duplication of the Western model. The integration of the chaharba¯gh system to the modern street grid, hayat with prefabricated houses, and the indirect collaboration of Mi’mars with architects are all components of this alternative indigenous modernism based on context, culture and the Iranian interpretation of modern. Epilogue Tehran’s urban modernization entered a new phase after 1960. The oil boom, the increase in the development budget, and the entrance of numerous international construction firms ushered in a new era of housing development in the 1970s. Low-cost housing for the middle class was no longer provided, instead replaced with spacious, luxury apartments. Ekbatan and Shahrak-e-Gharb are emblematic of this form of development. Mi’mars’ role in housing construction disappeared. Following the revolution in 1979, the housing and modernization process, in terms of ideology and economic policies, took yet another, completely different, trajectory, which deserves its own specific research and studies. References Abrahamian, E. (2008). A history of modern Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Adjdari, A. (1956). Elements in Narmak and Nazi-abad proposal [Nokat-i-darbareye-Kuy-ha-ye Narmak-va-Nazi-Abad]. Bank-e-Sakhtemani Journal, 4, 21–22 (in Persian). Arefi, M. (2014). Deconstructing place making – Needs, opportunities and assets. New York: Routledge.

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Report The 1949 Report on the Seven-Year Development Plan for the Plan Organization of the Imperial Government of Iran, Volume III, Town Improvement and Housing. New York: Overseas Consultants, Inc.