The Tehran Eye is a contextual shopping center that caters to the needs and the common living practices in the Iranian capital. The project, conceived by Farshad Mehdizadeh Design, consisted of redesigning a façade and reorganizing a large existing structure into an integrated entity in the city.
Though born in Tehran and remaining deeply inspired by her native Iran, architect Yasaman Esmaili has worked on projects all around the world. These primarily include humanitarian and crisis intervention works that deeply engage the local communities in which they are situated. A recent article by Metropolis Magazine discusses these projects in depth, as well as Esmaili’s story and inspirations.
As an entry to the 2019 Evolo Skyscraper Competition, JCPOA Tower was designed to combine cryptocurrency mining with a water park. Created by Ilia Attarpour, Dadbeh Mohebbi Gilani, and Ramtin Taherian, the project considered the US economic sanctions on Iran and the geopolitical crisis around the country's currency devaluation and near economic collapse. The designers proposed a cryptocurrency mining tower under the cover of its secondary water park function. The skyscraper explores how sanctions can be manipulated as a way out of crisis.
Eike Becker_Architekten and Hadi Teherani Architects have won an architectural competition for the headquarters of the National Iranian Gas Company in Tehran; the first architectural competition in the country held according to international standards since the 1979 revolution. Praised by the jury for their “holistic approach,” the winning scheme is dedicated to the central principles of Iranian architectural history, leading them into modernity.
The dominant feature of the 380,000-square-meter complex is a 200-meter-tall office tower whose design is inspired by the typical 9-square system of traditional Persian Shamseh ornamentation. The 40-story tower is supported by six 11-story office buildings, a congress center, a science center, a museum, a mosque, and shops.
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Austrian-born architect Victor Gruen is perhaps best known for pioneering the design of the American mall typology. His visions for these spaces sought to incorporate various aspects of the city into a single enclosed or indoor space, with a particular focus on consumption and commercial activity. His sprawling designs functioned as the perfect complement to America’s burgeoning leisure-driven consumer culture as a booming economy and an increase in car travel reinforced the possibilities of this new postwar way of life. Perhaps lesser-known, however, is Gruen’s commission from the Iranian government to design an urban plan for the city of Tehran in the late 1960s.
In the age of skyscrapers, the immediate solution to housing is to build up and duplicate single units in the plan. In contrast, the Zafereniah Tower designed by Challenge Studio, project laureate of the recent 2018 Architizer A+ Award, proposed a conceptual endeavor as a prototype for mid-rise, multi-unit housing.
The Tehran-based firm won both the Jury and Popular Choice Awards for their response to the prompt for a design that "champion[s] its potential for a positive impact on everyday life."
This article was originally published on 26 October, 2015. To read the stories behind other celebrated architecture projects, visit our AD Classics section.
Commissioned to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the Persian Empire, the Azadi Tower has been a site of celebration, unrest, and revolution. Despite its association with the deposed Shah, the tower has been embraced as a national symbol of Iran, playing host to both pro- and anti-government demonstrations, following the controversial 2009 Presidential elections.
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