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 ofIranian housing and the birth of a new urban form Narmak (Tehran,1952) q

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.03.0050264-2751/� 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

q The title is taken from the book Architecture without Architect by BernardRudofsky. The exhibition of the same name, hosted at Tehran’s Museum of ModernArt (November 9, 1964 to February 7, 1965) was commissioned by the Departmentof Rotating Exhibitions under the auspices of the International Council of theMuseum of Modern Art. Both the exhibition and the accompanying publicationwere prepared and designed by Bernard Rudofsky, consultant to the Department ofArchitecture 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 achoice and was not imposed by the Western (colonial) countries (Isenstadt & Rizvi,2008).

Rana Habibi ⇑, Bruno De MeulderOSA, 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 2014Received in revised form 20 February 2015Accepted 5 March 2015

Keywords:Tehran modernizationMiddle-class neighborhoodNarmakAlternative modernity

a b s t r a c t

This essay investigates the Iranian encounter with and influence on the international modernist move-ment. The reception of international modernist discourses and their weaving into Iranian housing- andcity-building practices contributed to the formation of a peculiar, alternative, and indigenous versionof modernism that took hold in the 1950s. While such practices were clearly part of the internationalmodern movement, they were simultaneously definable as uniquely Iranian. By analyzing the Narmakquarter in Tehran, this paper explores how the production of a middle-class neighborhood became partof a nation-building strategy. Through processes of moderation and appropriation, the idealistic mod-ernist version was made more practical based on pre-existing socio-cultural characteristics and typologi-cal elements. Ultimately, this local version of modernism led to the acceptance of modernism, provokedan urban reaction and produced some unexpected social consequences.

� 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Iran, similar to other non-Western countries, underwent aunique modernization process. In contrast to many neighboringcountries in the Middle East,1 however, Iran’s push for modernizationarose from internal pressures. This autonomous period of moderniza-tion—in the context of law and centralized government—originatedwithin Reza Shah’s dynasty in 1921. The central government wasformed at a time when radical Iranian reformists pushed for a moderncountry and a modern society (Abrahamian, 2008; Habibi, 1999;Mirsepassi, 2000). In 1920, Reza Khan (who, one year later, becameReza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty) declared his positionon Iranian modernism to Farangestan Magazine (Aryanpour, 1979):

Iran should resume her life again and everything should berenewed. We want to have a ‘modern Iran’ and a ‘modernnation’. We (as the central government) want to convert Iraninto a European country. Tehran will be the first modern cityin Iran and then it will be used as a model for other Iraniancities. In keeping with the morality of Iran, let us hold this sen-tence in our minds as our instruction: Iran should be mentallyand somatically, outwardly and inwardly European-oriented.

Shah’s suggestion is not unlike Baudelaire’s famous exclama-tion—il faut être absolument moderne (we must be absolutelymodern).

Planning for urban modernization, however, had already beenunderway for a long time before 1920. As Madanipour (2006)explains, the first phase of modern planning in Tehran refers tothe period before the Second World War, which was preceded byat least three major efforts that set the framework for the city’sgrowth and development: walling the city (1550s); expandingthe walled city (1870s) and building new urban infrastructure(1930s). These initiatives all arose from the government’s abilityand desire to instigate change and to shape the city throughlarge-scale infrastructure projects (Madanipour, 2006, s. 433).

Tehran’s ‘regional’ modernization act of 1930 superimposed agrid of Hausmannian boulevards on top of its vernacular urbanfabric. Most of Tehran’s physical modernization concerned theestablishment of boulevards and the construction of two- and

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.

30 R. Habibi, B. De Meulder / Cities 45 (2015) 29–40

three-story, single-family houses for elites inside the old city ofTehran (Habibi, 1999; Marefat, 1988; Mokhtari, 2011). However,the most significant part of the modernization process, which tookplace between 1921 and 1941, focused on institutional renewal,the establishment of a new bureaucratic system, and the introduc-tion of new habits, industries, etc. Examples of such changesinclude: 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 westwardurban expansion (1932)2; the opening of a cement and textile fac-tory in Rey (1933); the building of Bank-e Melli (the National Bank)and Tehran University (1934); and one of the most radical shifts inlocal customs—the ‘unveiling’ of women (1935) (Habibi, 1999).

The actual emergence of modernization in its physical form andthe development of the city beyond its old walls occurred duringthe 1940s, when new middle-class neighborhoods were designedand constructed. The modern middle class included governmentofficials, small landowners, teachers, and non-bazaar merchants(Gastil, 1958). The development of new (sub)urban neighborhoodsin Tehran through the Seven-Year Urban Development Plan, whichincluded experiments with low-cost housing, was partly due to aclear desire by the new middle class for new type of housing.These fully equipped, low-cost neighborhoods generally offeredan improved standard of living to residents; they signaled the startof an urban development policy for Iran (NY: OC inc report, 1949).

The Iranian variation on modernism became particularly articu-lated in the decade that followed, when significant programs forthe construction of middle-class housing were initiated. These pro-grams 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 wasexpected to result in a modern nation (see Bozdogan, 2001;Chahichian, 2009), and its ambition was to become the equivalentof model European nations, such as France and Germany. Turkeyhad also taken a similar approach to urban development, with

2 By 1932, the population density had doubled to 105 persons per hectare, and one-third 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 populationand to modernize urban infrastructure led to a substantial transformation of thecapital, in which it was ‘‘radically re-planned and re-built.’’ (see Madanipour, 2006, s.433).

the introduction of large middle-class neighborhood projects. TheLevent neighborhood in Istanbul, for example, designed by KemalAhmet Aru, was constructed in the 1950s,3 and it bears resem-blance to Namrak in Tehran.

Housing had become a tool for social and urban moderniza-tion—an agent of change for Yousef Abad, Nazi-Abad and Kuy-e-Kan (Shahr-e-Ziba), and as such, it was high priority on reformists’agendas. Iranian architects, like ‘‘most modernist architects in theworld, shared the moral pretension of advancing social and politi-cal goals through practices ranging from the design of the houseand the street to the planning of the whole city’’ (Lu, 2012). InIran, like in many countries, the desire for innovation by architectsand the desire to rebel against tradition were a reflection of andintertwined with political movements, in which housing was acentral issue. In this way, modern housing projects marked clearruptures with conventional housing production and were instru-mental in the creation of Iran’s modern middle-class society.

Beginning in 1952, the Narmak quarters were the second of thehousing initiatives in Tehran (the first being Chaharsad Dastgah in1946). While there were other neighborhood housing projects builtin the 1950s, including Yousef Abad, Nazi-Abad and Kuy-e-Kan(Shahr-e-Ziba), Narmak was the first to apply contemporary ideasregarding neighborhood amenities and new housing-constructiontechnologies. In terms of scale, Namrak was also the first large-scale, new neighborhood in Tehran; it was called Narmak—‘thenew city’—for this reason (see: Bank-e-Sakhtemani Journal, 1954).

A close examination of the Narmak case demonstrates howmodernization, as a global process put into practice locally, wassubject to social, cultural and geographical realities. The ‘pure’ con-cept of modernization became contextualized and moderated bythe existing social structure, architectural elements and realities.At the same time, the Iranian urban modernization process, as inthe case of Narmak, was similar to the modernization processexperienced by other non-Western countries. These processesoften ‘‘include both an ‘internationalism from below’ and an exten-sion of the enlightened cosmopolitanism of multiplicity’’ (Crinson,

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

R. Habibi, B. De Meulder / Cities 45 (2015) 29–40 31

2012); urban modernization forces a sudden rupture with the pastin most non-Western countries.

The Narmak project was intended to be absolutely modern, butvernacular elements found their way into this new, modern world.In this case, the vernacular discriminately co-operates with andinfiltrates the modernization process, and a new form of modernityemerges from the dialectic interaction. It is not an accident thatone speaks of the Modern movement. As a movement, modernityinevitability incorporated more variations as it expanded (DeMeulder, 2006); modernity is, therefore, multiple (De Meulder,2005; De Meulder & Plissart, 2002).

The co-existence of an imported modern culture with indige-nous cultural elements created a ‘third space’ and generated anew kind of livelihood:

Third Spaces constitute the discursive conditions of enunciationthat ensure that the meaning and symbols of culture have no pri-mordial unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be appro-priated, translated, re-historicized and read anew . . . thirdnessis part of an unceasing process or movement that is at once in-between and beside the ‘polarities’ of conflict, unsettling anyessentialist or foundationalist claim to the ‘originary’ that theymake.

[Bhabha, 1994, s.37]

Iran, as an ancient country, evidently had a long-standing tradi-tion of confrontation with new cultures and developed a uniqueapproach to the translation of new cultures, as Milani describesin paraphrasing Herodotus: ‘Persians freely adopted aspects ofother cultures, but always did so only after creatively transformingwhat they wanted to adopt into something that was uniquelyPersian’ (Milani, 2004, s.26).

In the case of Narmak, Iranian traditions formed an almost com-pulsory guiding image that contrasted with Iranian reformists’strong drive for modernization. The crystallization of this contrastreshaped and redefined the meaning of ‘modern’ in Iran, introduc-ing a new, uniquely indigenous version of what it means to bemodern.

Reformers

From inception to realization (1952–1964), the Narmak projectmoved alongside socio-political controversies. The inception phasecoincided with the nationalist movement, led by Prime MinisterDr. Mohammad Musaddeq,4 which pushed for the liberation ofthe Iranian oil industry from British control. The construction ofneighborhoods for the new middle class was high on Musaddiq’sagenda. In 1951, the Iranian parliament approved a law that allowedfor the construction of two neighborhoods in Narmak and Nazi-Abadin the Southern area of Tehran. In 1953, however, there was a coupinitiated by the Mohammad Reza Shah regime against Musaddeq,which, in retrospect, seemed to go hand-in-hand with the openingof a major gateway to American consumerist culture.

4 The charismatic Musaddeq was prominent in national politics since theConstitutional Revolution of 1906. He was best known for championing two majorcauses: strict constitutionalism at home and an equally strict policy of ‘negativeequilibrium’ abroad to ensure independence from foreign domination. He denouncedboth the 1919 Anglo-Iranian Agreement and the 1945–1946 oil negotiations withboth the Americans and Soviets. He took up the cause of oil nationalization,demanding that the government should take over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Heinsisted 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’eh-e-Melli), contained a broad spectrum of middle-class parties and associations. Withmiddle-class support, Musaddeq was able to mobilize a mass movement calling fornationalization. For him, ‘the nation reigns supreme,’ and supporting the middle andworking classes was at the top of his social development list. For more information,see Abrahamian, 2008.

The realization of Narmak necessitated the establishment ofmultiple organizations and laws. Some were completely new andspecifically created with the development of Narmak in mind,while others had existed previously and were modified to fit newconditions. The Association of Iranian Architects Diploma(Anjoman-e-Architect-ha-ye-Diplom-e-ye-Iran, AIAD) and theConstruction Bank (Bank-e-Sakhtemani) were the two mainorganizations to participate in the project (Fig. 1).

The AIAD consisted of Iranian modernist architects, whosesenior members studied in Europe (Ecole des Beaux Arts de Parisand the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Bruxelles) and whose junior mem-bers were the first generation of graduates from the Faculty of FineArt (Honar-ha-ye-Ziba) at Tehran University. The European-trainedarchitects were mostly students who, at Reza Shah’s command,had been dispatched to Europe in 1928 (Habibi, 1999). The Ecoledes Beaux-Arts of Tehran was, as its name suggests, based on thebeaux-arts system in Paris under the supervision of AndreGodard in 1940. Graduating architects earned the title of‘Architect-Diploma’ to distinguish themselves from traditionalcraftsmen called Mi’mar.5

The AIAD was formed by no more then 38 architects under thepresidency of Key-ghobad Zafar and vice presidency of Ali Sadegh.Other architect members included Abbas Adjdari, ManouchehrKhoursand, Naser Badie, Vartan Hovanesian, and Iraj Moshiri.These architects returned from training in Europe to their homecountry with a single mission: to modernize Iranian cities. The ‘‘sor-rowful’’ urban situation in Iran (Moshiri, 1946) was deemed unac-ceptable, so they set out to find suitable solutions. They advisedgovernments and municipalities (including Tehran) on ways tobuild ‘better’ cities. They introduced international principles ofbuilding, made connections with foreign cultural associations andattended international conferences.6 They opened an architecturelibrary (mainly with donations from Italy and France), organizedexhibitions (e.g., on English architecture), and published journals,such as Architect, first released in 1946. The content of the journalsis emblematic of the time, clearly articulating their reformist objec-tives: detoxify Iranian cities, diagnose their weaknesses, and discussthe best solutions (Khursand, 1946). As self-declared technocrats inline with European modernism, they proceeded to criticize the con-ventions and practices of traditional Iranian city building.

Not surprisingly, their proposals to transform the city (andsociety) echoed Western modernism. For instance, the declarationby AIAD member Vartan Hovanesian (1946, s.7) resembles LeCorbusier’s thoughts on ‘modernism as great epoch’7:

In recent years, the breeze of modernism has transformedIranian social life and has created a Spirit of Modernity in peo-ple – a spirit that is perfectly visualized in architecture. Soon,Iranians will encounter modern problems and their survival isdependent upon the resolution of these problems. This era ofthe 20th century has pushed people to make greater efforts,and their impacts will be seen in all aspects of social life. Wehave a responsibility towards future generations and we shouldshoulder our responsibility in the best possible way; if we stickto our traditions and consequently fail to take full responsibil-ity, 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, discussedexplicitly 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 theMunicipality of Tehran attended the International Union of Architects (UIA) congressin Lausanne, Switzerland (Moshiri, 1946).

7 A decade earlier, Le Corbusier described the modern period: ‘‘A great epoch hasbegun. There exists a new spirit. There exists a mass of work conceived in the newspirit. It is to be met with particularly in industrial production . . . our own epoch isdetermining day by day its own style’’ (Heynen, 1999).

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

32 R. Habibi, B. De Meulder / Cities 45 (2015) 29–40

to take care of our progress and excellence and we fail to havean adequate understanding of the spirit of the time.

AIAD represented the modernist movement in Iran andsimultaneously enjoyed the confidence of the (modernizing) statein planning for development. In 1952, the state granted theorganization the responsibility to design low-cost housing forTehran’s new middle class. For the construction and financing ofthe Narmak project, AIAD cooperated with Bank-e-Sakhtemani.The new state bank was established through investments fromthe Ministry of Agriculture and the Iran Insurance Company. Itsfoundation was concurrent with the 1952 approval of the ‘registra-tion of dead-lands’ (Habibi, 1999). According to this new law,based on Islamic regulations, the person who resuscitates ‘dead-lands’ becomes the owner of the land (Tabatabayi, 1962). By sur-veying and zoning vast areas of dead-lands, Bank-e-Sakhtemaniassembled a vast land bank suitable for large-scale, mass-producedhousing projects, such as the one in Narmak. The formation of thisrelationship between the association of architects and bankers asan executive institution for public housing was one of the firststeps towards mass housing modernization in Tehran, making itunique among non-Western countries.

A modernist vision for a middle-class neighborhood | Narmak

In 1954, AIAD published a series of journal volumes about Bank-e-Sakhtemani activities and developments, appropriately called theJournal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani.8 Inevitably, these journal volumes

8 The editor of the Bank-e-Sakhtemani Journal was Naser Badie; it published ninevolumes between 1955 and 1960.

became a stage for architects to express statements on and mani-festations of modern urbanism. Some volumes of the journal werededicated to the Narmak project, which was showcased as the posterchild for modern Iranian urbanism. The main objective for the archi-tects of Narmak was to design a modern city outside of Tehran’s oldcity by following the latest planning principles and modern reg-ulations of urbanism (Khodayar, 1955). ‘Modern’ and ‘European’seem to be interchangeable notions in the language used in the jour-nal, as expressed in an article by Khodayar (1955, s.2):

Narmak’s New Modern Town was constructed on the east sideof Tehran with respect to all modernist regulations in urbanism;Narmak, which was once a wasteland and devoid of residents, isquickly changing into a beautiful modern city . . . Narmak is aperfect example of Iranian architectural taste . . . This city willhave all the requirements for modern life, such as a cinema, atheatre, a hospital, a playground, water and power resources,and land, and, devoid of residents, it is quickly changing intoa beautiful, modern city.

The town plan for Narmak occupied an area of 507 ha and fore-saw 25,000 residents living on the east side of the old city ofTehran. According to the proponents of the project, Narmak tookadvantage of all design and construction principles of modernurbanism. The layout proposed a grid with large green boulevardsthat ran east to west and included 119 common gardens allocatedto each respective block (Fig. 2). The block layout resembled thetypical chaharbagh (four-quarter gardens), an archetype inIranian traditional urbanism—a rectangle divided to four quartersof trees and flowers and linked together by stream of water andpathways. The repetition of this pattern provided a linear formand an urban structure. The architects of Narmak, however,

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.

10 In the proposal, the Modern Art Museum of Narmak has an exhibition salon for200 painting panels and 500 sculptures. It also has an amphitheater for an audience of500. It is located in a 150 � 150-m area with 22,500 square meters; it is 5 stories tall,

R. Habibi, B. De Meulder / Cities 45 (2015) 29–40 33

adapted the chaharbagh pattern to the modern design by locatinghouses (instead of gardens) on the outside and designating the vastempty space in the middle as a public green space. The pattern ofchaharbagh was also ‘gridified.’ At first sight, this use of a grid is notso different from ‘‘the standard 1950s grid of Ecochard’’ (VonOsten, 2010)—a universal tool for rapid and large urban expan-sions. However, a second look reveals variations to the grid usedto accommodate differences in block size as well as variations inthe way in which north–south boulevards are used to shift thepositions of east–west streets.

Green boulevards had been used as an instrument of urbanrenewal by Reza Shah since the 1930s. Following the Law ofStreet Development (1933) and the decree on the new map ofTehran (1937), the first Haussmann-like boulevards appeared onthe north side of Tehran (Abrahamian, 2008).9 Soon after, they wereadopted as one of the main instruments of modernization and werereplicated throughout the city.

In Narmak, the north–south and east–west boulevards deliverthe 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 completelythrough the neighborhood. All other boulevards end in one wayor another inside Narmak, sometimes simply as dead ends. In othercases, they lead to important civic destinations or landmarks. Thisdeviation from the standard grid results in a system for Narmakthat mediates regularity and deviation, continuity and interrup-tion, and integration into the global identity, flow and destinationmechanisms of the city.

Globally, modernist architecture, as both a symbol and anorganizational model, constituted the concept and the environ-ment of the ‘new modern man.’ Modernist housing and urban plan-ning 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 modernsociety by providing housing to the middle class, a functional cityhad to be configured with the capacity to accommodate the chang-ing needs of (the new) modern man: work, leisure, health,

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

education, and a proper house. Narmak’s designers responded tothese 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 tohouse three towers for administrative, municipal, and commercialfunctions, while the rest of the public facilities, such as schools,mosques, hospitals, and orphanages, were to be situated alongthe east–west green boulevards. A large park on the west sidewas designated as a leisure zone and would accommodate iconicbuildings, such as the Museum of Modern Art,10 a cinema, and asports hall. North Narmak would hold utilities: the power plantand water reservoir.11 The grid pattern and green boulevardsweaved this multiplicity of functions together.

The logic of the grid and the accommodation of various socialfunctions in specialized areas were all manifestations of mod-ernism; however, housing was the main exhibition. Two intersect-ing north–south and east–west boulevards composed theneighborhood’s main thoroughfares. Up to six 8-m-wide dead-end alleys with a large central common garden formed the interiorconfiguration that provided a quiet ‘comfort zone’ for families thatcomplimented the businesses on the main thoroughfares(Khodayar, 1955) (Fig. 4). Each block contained approximately 70housing units; an elementary school was designated every threeor four blocks. Other facilities were centrally located along thethree main boulevards. These family- and community-orientedfacilities were meant to define a new vocabulary for modern neigh-borhoods in Tehran.

The integration of a modern grid with the archetype of cha-harbagh was part of an enculturation process. This process, asRandlof David explains, designates the conscious and selectiveadoption of vernacular and indigenous elements from the local cul-ture in order to lend a touch of familiarity to something that is

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 firsttime, armed concrete was used in the aqueduct so that the amount of waterconsumption in summer and winter became manageable, and an aquifer wasreserved for droughts. Above the aqueduct and its channels, 20,000 trees wereplanted, becoming the forest of Shian (Khodayar, 1955).

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

34 R. Habibi, B. De Meulder / Cities 45 (2015) 29–40

brought in from the outside (David, 2012). The process of encul-turation was acceded by the architects themselves in the designphase, almost as a compulsory act according to existing archetypes.In the design of housing units, however, architects chose to importthe modern model and saw no need to adapt it to the Iranian con-text. The house was, after all, the symbol of modernity and a toolfor social modernization.

The design of the housing units was based on the importedFrench prefabrication system, KALAD. This concrete prefabricationsystem was positioned as a ‘housing factory,’ with the capacity toproduce one house per day (Khodayar, 1957). The architects pro-posed one-story, semi-detached homes with a private yard andtypologies of two, three, and four rooms, constructed with1.10 � 4.40 m panels (Khodayar, 1957) (Fig. 5). According toBank-e-Sakhtemani, KALAD was not only a system for housing stan-dardization but also a ‘‘representative of the beautiful and afford-able modern house’’ (Khodayar, 1957). KALAD was first tested inBari, Italy, a city that faces a similar level of risk for earthquakesas Tehran does (Khodayar, 1955). The Bank-e-Sakhtemani teamused the same KALAD housing unit plan that was used in Bari, eventhough Bari is on the sea and Tehran is in a semi-arid climate. Evenchimneys made their way to Narmak. KALAD’s housing type was atwo-bedroom home with living and dining rooms separated by aservice area (Fig. 6). The service area included a kitchen and bath-room, with a hallway linking the spaces together. This functional

division (between daytime activities in the living and dining roomsand nighttime activities in the bedrooms) also applied to the vol-ume of the respective rooms. Narmak architects used this samegeneral layout in variations of two-, three-, and four-bedroomunits (Fig. 7). In this way, modernist architecture—as a way ofbuilding, a knowledge product, a style-of-life consumer item, andabove all, a symbol of modernity—traversed national boundariesin the form of prefabricated housing designed for the middle class(Lu, 2012).

Narmak became a model used in many other new middle-classneighborhoods, such as Nazi-Abad south of Tehran. Nazi-Abad’sdesign used the same grid logic and common gardens as Narmak(Fig. 8). Advertisements in the Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemaniadvised those applying for land ownership in Nazi-Abad to visitthe 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 sevenmonths without government support and by prepayment ofland purchases. Single-family houses with two, three and fourrooms were constructed according the latest style of Europeanhousing. Low-cost but beautiful and livable housing is a goodexample for private investors to learn how to invest theirmoney in the construction of low-cost housing.

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

R. Habibi, B. De Meulder / Cities 45 (2015) 29–40 35

By 1957, Bank-e-Sakhtemani had constructed the gridded neigh-borhood, green boulevards and 370 prefabricated KALAD houses(Fig. 9).12

A yard: contextualization of modern

While architects preached the universal applicability of modernarchitecture, Iranian dwellers had other things on their minds.Eventually, the requests of Narmak’s middle-class homeownersended up in the Journal of Bank-e-Sakhtemani; a pool in the yardfor washing clothes and rugs and a stairway from the yard to theroof, designated as an alternate sleeping space in the summer,topped the wish list (Sarafian, 1960). The owners desired an exten-sion of the house from the inside to the outside; modern neighbor-hoods were missing the outside spaces that traditionallystructured daily practices of domesticity. Mina Marefat emphasizesthe crucial role of the yard (hayat) in traditional Iranian houses(1988):

The hayat was landscaped as a small chaharbagh (literally, fourgardens) with trees and flowers and brick paving in geometricpatterns around a small, central pool of water. Sleeping out-doors in the hayat or on the roof was customary in the warmerseasons when the courtyard was sprinkled with water in theevening 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 waterfor washing, cleaning, and, sometimes, bathing children. The hayatwas a multi-purpose space, both a private family center and a placefor entertaining visitors.

The home designs with gardens published in the Journal ofBank-e-Sakhtemani (Fig. 10) were almost certainly responses tohomeowner requests for outside spaces. The design shown inFig. 10 places the international modernist housing ideal next to avery elaborate plan for the spatial organization of the outsidespace. The picturesque garden does not merely complement thehouse; 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 centeredon the exterior space (which is very elaborate in the drawing)and another as a functional collection of interior spaces. The twoco-exist in the drawing as two separate domains, both elaboratedwith their own sets of logic and without too many relationshipsbetween them. The plan does not choose, nor does it compromiseor mix. It simply provides both domains side by side: the house asa representation of the international modernist paradigm and thegarden as a customized, localized space to meet the traditionalneeds of homeowners. Consequently, the design has a hawz (poolof water) linked to the house by a stone pathway. The pool wasmeant to correspond to the traditional design in which the homeis defined by the pool’s centrality. The staircase on the house’sfacade connects the yard and roof. As mentioned above, the yardwas used as a second living room and was connected to the roof,which was used as an alternative bedroom; the staircase offereda vertical connection between the semi-public space and thesemi-private space. Both the hawz and staircase, as symbols ofhome, family and ‘a familiar subject,’ were used to contextualizethe modern house.

These elements were added to the exterior spaces of the KALADhouses. Most of the spaces in the houses were used by residents asmulti-functional spaces, despite the fact that the architects pro-vided specialized labels to rooms (living rooms, bedrooms, etc.)that were designed for small, modern nuclear families. The realityof the large, extended Iranian family, however, meant that allspaces labeled as living rooms, bedrooms, studies, and so on werereinterpreted and personalized to be used as multi-functionalspaces.

Builders: negotiating the modern

Through a policy change and the establishment of the HousingMinistry in 1964, Bank-e-Sakhtemani ceased to be responsible forthe development of Narmak. This was concurrent with a dramaticrate of urban population growth (25.4%) in Tehran (MaghsoodiTilaki, Abdullah, Bahauddin, & Hedayati Marzbali, 2013). By 1958,Bank-e-Sakhtemani had built roads, common gardens and theinfrastructure of the grid, 370 housing units, several shops, andschools (Barmak, 2013). The theatre, Museum of Modern Art, and

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

36 R. Habibi, B. De Meulder / Cities 45 (2015) 29–40

sports hall had yet to materialize. The KALAD housing factory suf-fered due to a lack of technicians and high production costs; even-tually, it stopped production altogether.

The state sold the rest of the vacant lots and assumed theresponsibility for finishing the construction of public facilities. Inthis way, builders and immigrants in Tehran carried the projectof modernization forward. Builders (mostly Mi’mar, or in the localdialect, ousta) and immigrants constituted an informal agency to

undertake construction on their own homes. In an unofficial agree-ment between the builder and the owner of the land, the builderdid not have to buy land to start construction or have much capitalavailable in advance. Instead, an agreement would be reached withthe landowner to use the plot and to provide the house. The own-ers sometimes divided their lands into two or even three parcels,kept one lot and sold the rest. A comparison of aerial maps from1954 and 1962 clearly shows how 200–500-square-meter lots

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.

R. Habibi, B. De Meulder / Cities 45 (2015) 29–40 37

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

38 R. Habibi, B. De Meulder / Cities 45 (2015) 29–40

were divided into 50–100-square-meter lots (Fig. 11). The ‘privateownership law’ (1906) established by constitutional rev-olutionaries to counter 19th-century landlords opened a new mar-ket not only for reformers but also for ‘all’ builders.

Immigrants who came to Tehran to work in construction-re-lated fields constituted the first wave of builders in Narmak. Forconstruction, they maintained the idea of the original housingmodel but used a mix of structural walls and an iron skeleton withlocal materials. The white unadorned facades, rectangular outlines,wide openings, and flat rooftops were reminiscent of modernistprinciples. These new builders played a significant role inNarmak’s further development (and in the development of greaterTehran). They offered owners two-story houses with small frontand 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 in1960 (Adjdari, 1956, s.25):

It is a pity! This new town should have been constructedexactly according to the master plan and should not have beenabandoned like that . . . construction permission was granted topeople without controlling whether they were keeping to the

master plan or not. Such disorder caused a terriblecatastrophe.

However, the so-called catastrophe accommodated the dailyneeds of the people living there. This raises questions: does thispost-project development embody cultural beliefs and attitudes,and does it evoke a vernacular architecture? Regardless, whatbegan as state-initiated modernism soon gave way to a versionproduced by local market forces, integrating traditional crafts,migrant labor capacities, land speculation, and local business prac-tices. In Narmak, landowners and builders developed a new urbanlandscape that inscribed itself in the modern grid. Over time, thedivision and proportion of housing lots changed fluidly dependingon socio-economic needs, while the gridded green boulevards andcommon gardens remained the same. Within this stable grid, ahybrid fabric was developed that combines the modern and thevernacular, the formal and the informal, the designed and an ‘ar-chitecture without architects.’ This fabric, co-produced by archi-tects, landowners and inhabitants, houses the so-calledindigenous modernism. It introduced an ‘alternative modernism’with the ‘‘durability and versatility, characteristic of vernaculararchitecture’’ (Umbach & Huppauf, 2005, s.3) and the simplicity

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 thepeople and houses by builders in 1962, based on Narmak maps of National Cartographic Center, Tehran, Accessed April 2012.

R. Habibi, B. De Meulder / Cities 45 (2015) 29–40 39

and functionalism of modern architecture. This vibrating couplet ofmodern and vernacular defines a hybrid space in which Iranian’sversion of modernity took shape.

Conclusion

The modernization process in Iran was fueled by actionsundertaken by two main groups: reformers and citizens who

experienced and responded to this reformation. The process beganwith an ideal modernism and notion of modernization, which wereembraced by reformers (whether government agencies, architects,planners, or bankers) and which provided a clear break from thepast. At the same time, people who experienced the rupture withtradition 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

40 R. Habibi, B. De Meulder / Cities 45 (2015) 29–40

practice of ‘everyday life’ resulted in an alternative modernity,where the modern vocabulary was adapted and applied to dailylife. Indigenous interpretations of an imagined ideal and amultiplicity of other experiences of modern life were reflected inspatial forms and cultural expressions, which, over time, producednew conventions (Hosagrahar, 2012).

The neighborhood of Narmak is an emblematic example ofstate-produced, middle-class housing because it demonstratesthe two faces of Tehran’s modernization: (1) reformers, who werestate functionaries, bankers, and architects who used their author-ity and propaganda to initiate modernization; and (2) the residentswho lived and experienced modernization as it was presented tothem, the ‘‘non-elite population who appears as an active agentof social and economic change’’ (Heynen, 1999). In the firstinstance, Narmak presents a case in which housing reformers(specifically architects and bankers) and landowners learned tointeract and work with each other and others through negotiation.This negotiation resulted in a novel type of housing: an adaptationof 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 pro-mises or meet the expectations of residents. They began with anidealistic vision, but through compromise, they ended up demon-strating the realistic projections of the people. Narmak demon-strates another form of modernity that is not a less-perfect,incomplete version of an idealized modernity but rather one thatgrows and changes according to its own trajectories, discourses,and social institutions.

Narmak also serves as an example of double modernization inTehran, uncovering coexistences such as those of the architectand craftsman, prefabrication models and local materials, the bankas a system of housing construction and state benefit, and individ-ual housing projects as a private benefit. Ironically, Narmak beganwith an architectural master plan that grew into ‘architecturewithout architects.’ At the same time, the trajectory of Narmakdemonstrates how urban modernization in Tehran was shapedby Iranian culture, contextualization and the translation of the ‘im-ported modern’; it was not simply the duplication of the Westernmodel. The integration of the chaharbagh system to the modernstreet grid, hayat with prefabricated houses, and the indirect col-laboration of Mi’mars with architects are all components of thisalternative indigenous modernism based on context, culture andthe 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 theentrance of numerous international construction firms ushered ina new era of housing development in the 1970s. Low-cost housingfor the middle class was no longer provided, instead replaced withspacious, luxury apartments. Ekbatan and Shahrak-e-Gharb areemblematic of this form of development. Mi’mars’ role in housingconstruction disappeared. Following the revolution in 1979, thehousing and modernization process, in terms of ideology and eco-nomic policies, took yet another, completely different, trajectory,which deserves its own specific research and studies.

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Report

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