Marefat...
modernity. The clock soon stopped working but the city’s temporal life
continued moving along to the periodic calls to daily prayer. In fact, the
new wall and towers of the late 1860s, reportedly inspired by Vauban’s
fortification of Paris, were designed to assert Tehran’s claim to being the
center of a global Shi‘ite Caliphate. Even as Qajar shahs and their courts
traveled to the West and became increasingly covetous of Western ob-
jects, they never politically embraced or promoted ideologies of moder-
nity, much less the secularizing tendencies of globalization. The prolif-
eration of religious buildings was the most salient architectural sign of
population growth in Tehran.REz A S HAH AND M ODERNIzATION (1924-41)
Like Ataturk in Turkey, Reza Shah headed a paternalistic state intent on modernization,
with or without substantive changes. (Figure 6) His relationship with the West, however,
was ambivalent. He welcomed the forces of global development, Western experts, and
visitors, but also resented their perceived superiority and aimed to curtail their influence
by replacing them with Iranian counterparts.
His program of urban surgery was a conscious process of introducing new institutions
and forms: wide paved boulevards with separate pedestrian and vehicular lanes, an or-
thogonal grid of streets imposed on mazelike neighborhoods, and large public squares
at intersections. (Figure 7) He tore down the walls of the citadel, razed most of its build-
ings, and replaced them with monumental government and bureaucratic edifices. This
new architecture underscored a grandiose state ideologically committed to nationalism,
secularism, and modernization. [Figure 8]
At the same time, however, Reza Shah countered modernity with an indigenous past. Throughout Tehran, he replaced
19 th century religious symbols with pre-Islamic iconography recalling the ancient Persian Empire. A most telling sign
was the new National Bank, a statement of financial independence
and a rejection of British domination [Figure 9] directly inspired by
Persepolis, the treasury of the ancient Persian Empire. [Figure 10]
Even as he employed European architects, the Shah also supported a
first generation of Western-educated Iranian architects who put their
own unique stamp on public and private buildings. But his effort to
turn Western influence to the benefit of a globally significant Iran
was not as consequential as he had hoped, insofar as Iran was not yet
Figure 2: Berezin map of Tehran, 1842
Figure 3: 1858 Krziz Arg (citadel)Figure 4: Royal Mosque (Flandin)