In 2004, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture — a prize recognizing projects that “enhance the understanding and appreciation of Islamic culture” — went to a cluster of fourteen modest buildings in Baninajar, Iran. Constructed nearly ten years earlier to house Iraqi refugees from the first Gulf War, the project was carried out under the auspices of the United Nations Development Program and .....

In the winter and spring of 1974, Christian Norberg-Schulz was guest professor of Architecture at MIT and I had the chance of taking the two courses he taught during that semester.

The story of Iran’s present day architecture goes far beyond formal expressions or generated ideas. In fact, diverse controversial factors did shape the final entity. Any evaluation or criticism, without an accurate review on the dialectic platform of the historical process, will have all kinds of shortcuts, fallouts and misunderstandings.

Iran’s contemporary architecture can be divided into three periods. From the 1960’s up to the Islamic Revolution constitutes.

I Return home and to Architecture