Abstract

Located at the heart of Iran’s capital, Abbas Abad Hills were bizarrely left undeveloped before the revolution, leaving the new government with the perfect opportunity to develop an entire urban block in the middle of its capital according to its vision. Scrapping all previous master plans for the area, it was re-planned as a cultural district including parks and multiple cultural and leisure public buildings and amenities, a master plan which, with some exceptions, was delivered as intended. Interestingly, however, almost none of the structures and landscapes in the area resemble any associations with the state-favored national Islamic traditions of built environment, with the only exceptions being the congregational Friday prayer place (Mosalla) and the Iranian academia complex which, ironically, were never completed. References and associations presented by other buildings are quite different: from hi-tech to old-school functionalism, to Frei Otto-style lightweight structures: anything but traditional Islamic. This article examines various explanations for such a significant deviation from the establishment’s officially prescribed design paradigms at its most unexpected heartland. Is it quite simply about the lack of actual authority? Is it that non-traditional buildings can be seen as empty signs which, with reference to Roland Barthes and Ernesto Laclau, can represent any form of power including that of an Islamic state? Is it that the state implicitly believes in the power of contemporary architecture in rendering progressive the state of a nation? Or, are there potentials even in the most state monitored architectural projects to defy the power and resist its demanded forms of representation? The answer is probably comprised of a mixture of all these, but what Tehran’s new cultural district showcases is that in a world in which architecture is usually and rightly deemed to be increasingly engulfed by the will of power, be it economic or political, there still lies the possibility of an architecture of resistance, even when it comes to representations of power.