Acknowledgments
The core and initial idea of this book is rooted in my childhood. As a child, I grew up in one of the modernist towers of Tehran. A brutalist twenty floor concrete tower with a vast, delightful public garden. My grandparent’s house, with its lush, green, private garden, was located just a few streets away. The contrast between these two ambiences was very visible to my eyes. Both neighborhoods were built during the Cold War and were constructed under Tehran’s modernization scheme. Our home dated back to the late seventies, my grandparent’s home was from the mid-forties. Nevertheless, the contrast between these two neighborhoods in terms of structure, form and ambience was quite significant.
Years later, as an urbanist, I couldn’t help thinking back to this dual, mixed image of my childhood, which aroused my curiosity, leading me to delve further into the history of modern urbanism in Iran and the socio-political circumstances behind Tehran’s modern neighborhoods, built during the Cold War era. The socio-urban conditions led to a very diverse spectrum of modernism, at times more rooted in what is recognized as Iranian culture and at times pertaining more to what can be considered international culture.
I further developed the question of Iranian urban modernism during my PhD at the University of Leuven, where the structure and the contents of this book came into being. Which is why I would like to express my gratitude to the KULeuven architectural department research group, ASRO, who homed and inspired me for four years, and especially Prof. Bruno De Meulder, who constantly enlightened me with his creative ways of looking at the history of indigenous modernity. I would also like to thank Prof. Kelly Shannon, Prof. Hilde Heynen and Prof. Viviana d’Auria who inspired me with their insightful comments given during their seminars and meetings.
I cannot also express enough gratitude to Prof. Ali Madanipour and Farrokh Derakhshani, who generously read the first draft of this book and enlightened me with their points of view.
The chapters of this books also evolved over the last five years thanks to the conferences and professional debates I attended and the series of publication processes I was involved in. I wish to express my gratitude to all peer-reviewers and editors, such as Ali Modarres, Alexander Staub, and Janina Gosseye, who read these excerpts and delighted me with their constructive and critical comments. I would also like to express my appreciation to Routledge the publisher and to the Journal of Cities, that previously published parts of this book.1
Finding the right material and original documents for this research would have been impossible without the generous help of Dr. Eskandar Mokhtari Tāleghani, Dr. Iraj Etesām, Abdollāh Khosravi, Rahmān Golzār, Parvāneh Etemādi, Samilā Amir Ebrāhimi and Parivash Norouz-Nāsiri, I am sincerely thankful of them all.
Indeed this book would not have come into being without the bounteous intellectual and emotional support of my parents: my dear father Prof. Mohsen Habibi and my beloved mother Shāhin Eskandari, who accompanied me during the site visits, provided me with the necessary documents from afar and stood by me during the times of hardship. I am also thankful to my siblings Dr. Farhang Habibi and Dr. Negār Habibi and my nephew Shāyānn Assadi who heartily supported me during the publication process of this book in the time of social-distancing. Without the warmth of my family this work would never have materialized.
I am also heartily thankful to my dear friends Simā Johnston, Reihane Sattāri, and Lieve De Cock, who constantly encouraged me and showed support and enthusiasm for publishing this book.
Finally, I would like to thank Dominic Ronayne for the English editing of this book, his input made this book more comprehensive and joyful to read.
A last and final thanks to Brill publishers, especially Kathy van Vliet, for all the help they gave me in publishing this book.
Rana Habibi
15 May 2020
Watermael-Boitsfort
The list of the Author publications which partially appeared in this book includes:
Rana Habibi, “Domesticated shopping Mall in Modern Tehran (re)development: Ekbātān: 1975,” in Acculturating the Shopping Center, eds. Janina Gosseye & Tom Avermaete (UK: Routledge, 2019), 111–126.
Rana Habibi, “Unveiled Middle Class Housing in Tehran 1945–1979,” in Modernity, Gender and Architecture, ed. Alexandra Staub (UK: Routledge, 2018), 253–269.
Rana Habibi, “The Institutionalization of Modern Middle Class Neighborhoods in 1940s Tehran – Case of Chahārsad Dastgāh”, Cities 60, Part A (2017): 37–49.
Rana Habibi & Bruno De Meulder, “Architects and Architecture without Architects: Iranian Housing Modernization and the Birth of New Urbanization,” Cities 45, (June 2015): 29–40.