B.A. In your film installations there is a layer through which you approach cinema and its properties. Can you tell us more about the relationship between the subjects in your work and cinema?

S.MQ. Well, I try to answer like this. In some ways it is the ethics, which is the subject matter, and the aesthetics, which is being the camera and cinema. Bringing them together has to be a situation where both interlock together. One can’t work without the other. I think sometimes one is searching for a right way of portraying something. For example, I made a film about my cousin, who shot and killed his brother…

N.T. A true story?

S.MQ. Yes, an accident unfortunately … and how I approached that was through the cinematic way of the still image. And the still image happened to be his head. He was lying on the floor and I took a photograph from the top of his head, and projected the image with the voice over of him talking about what happened on that specific day. So, it was about the whole idea of memory and what he was saying, and how that transforms the images in people’s head rather than the image that they were looking at. The still image of his head was just a visual focus, and from there you could go somewhere else. My cousin speaks for 25 minutes nonstop, from the total length of 28 minutes. He is totally engrossed in what he says, because he has a way of telling the story, which has so many different layers. As a viewer you go with him through the whole story: of how did the day begin, how he found the gun etc. So it is almost minute by minute that you get closer and closer into his head.

B.A. Can you say more about this relationship between ethics and aesthetics?

S.MQ. Its just logic for me, the way one has to approach art in one way or another and it has to be some kind of a foundation of what you are looking at. Therefore one has to interlock with the other. It has its own autonomy in some ways, and that’s why it’s so difficult to make an interesting piece of work. It is about that balance, not necessarily a balance, it is about that sort of fusion as such, its not even a fusion, its all about that autonomy: it is, it’s an IS. And one is always trying to look for that IS within representing in art. Because it’s never an illustration, it has to have some kind of ethical and I think fundamentally moral significance. It’s all about some kind of humanity.

B.A. In a way it’s a kind of strategy to deal with representation?

S.MQ. I don’t think it’s a strategy. Its like poetry or literature, you use texts or words, you have a whole vocabulary of words, and you want to engross yourself in something, so the aesthetics of the word is intertwined with what you are writing about it is in the work, and it has the autonomy of an IS, its an is. It’s not a style.

N.T. Maybe you can explain all this in the context of your work about your cousin, and that in relation to the ethics and aesthetics of cinema and representation.

S.MQ. You know I don’t think or care so much about cinema. On the one hand I do because I make films, but my work is never about a certain medium. I tend to forget that in a way. Its like reading: you forget you can read.
…
I had the sound first, the voice of my cousin talking about the incident that was recorded in a studio. I first was thinking of putting the sound in a room and that’ll be it. But somehow I knew that there needed to be a focus point; a situation where the viewers’ eyes could focus, maybe on a totally abstract or arbitrary way. And I had this idea of the top of his head. I was interested in the image of his head, the oval of his head being the focal point of the piece. I needed the audience participation in the piece to have a focal point, and that for me was the oval of Marcus’s head, the top of his head. And through the 28 minutes of the piece your eyes have always something to focus back on.

B.A. I don’t want to say realism, but there is a sense of naturalism in that piece.

S.MQ. Sure, but only because of the fact of technology. What I am trying to do is to get the essence of the event. And I am trying to do this with the technology of the everyday, what is available to us now.

N.T. You recently traveled to Basra for a film project. Can you tell us about it?

S.MQ. I was commissioned by the Imperial war museum, in London, to be the so-called official war artist, for the Iraq war. This institution has been going on since the Crimean war, and before. They asked me if I was interested. I said yes I want to do it. It was one of those privileged situations. I could be in a situation I wanted to be in which was the so-called conflict situation. I was of course interested in the economics of the war, what leads people to those extremes. I have never been in a war before, never been in Iraq before. Never been with the military before.
It is very strange being with the military, with that sort of mentality. And I was pretty much protected, unfortunately, from the situation. I was being taken around by the British army. The expression I got from the people in Iraq was that they are very happy that they are free of Saddam, but at the same time not happy with the occupation. It is a very strange dilemma.

N.T How then do you see your trip to Iraq, as a filmmaker, in the light of the above? And the representation overload of Iraq by the media that is taking place now?

S.MQ. All the information we get of this war is through the media, or media coverage, in whatever form and shape it takes. As an artist, or a person who is trying to deal with something else outside the media, I think there is space for that and I am looking for something within that which is not represented in these so called news corporation ways.

B.A. You think literally being there, one can, as an artist come closer to the essence of the situation?

S.MQ. I asked myself why go there. I think if there is an opportunity to go and look, I don’t think you can lose anything from it; in fact you can gain from that. You may in the end come back with nothing. But in the end it can give you a situation where you can take it or leave it.

N.T. As an artist born in Iran, and not having lived there for a long time, I never made work directly about that country and the last time I was there I realized that I don’t have to know the situation, it has changed a great deal since I left , I could work in that situation without being too close to it. One could develop a method of working that could be applied in every situation. On the other hand one is always informed by images of Iraq that only show the catastrophe. But maybe when you go there you see another situation where people are also busy with their daily life.

S.MQ. Well that’s exactly what happened when I was in Basra. You wait a long time until something happens. Most of the times you are doing nothing, nothing happens. But when something happens hell breaks loose. For me, I have to think about it, contemplate it and feel it in the real. But when you are at home you make a cup of tea and watch the news.

N.T. You went to Iraq as a British artist, trying to reflect on the situation there’
how do you look at the increase of interest in the west towards the art coming from outside of Europe in recent years?

S.MQ. I think the interest has always been there, but has never been so serious in some ways. I think the history of art has to be the history of art, and that has to embrace the world and not just America and Western Europe. The history of art is about the history of the world of art. Thank god people are starting to wake up and realize that there are situations of art making outside of Western Europe and North America and its serious, vigorous and strong. But when you are talking about art in the market you are talking about something else. The artists at the same time have to keep their integrity within this situation, not to be used for certain games by certain people. So, they should use the opportunity, to do what they should do, or can do within that.

N.T. So, after the major steps have been taken in introducing non-western artists in the west, whether by following a certain kind of fashion or in a respectful way. What could now be the next step?

S.MQ. I think for example that events such as the Documenta have to be relocated every 5 years. It can’t be stuck in Germany. If you really want it to be global it has to be like the Olympic games. It has to be like the World Cup. It has to move from this central western position. Next time it should be in Tehran, or it should be Beijing, or Mexico city.

B.A. Political situations in non-western countries play an important role on the global level and inevitably within the art world. But sometimes these are played out to a certain simplistic and homogeneous political exoticism: works that come from the so-called troubled countries or conflict zones are expected to be direct representations of these situations.

S.MQ. Yes absolutely. It’s a romantic notion. There is this romantic idea of the third world and revolutions. There are those who want you to express your fears as a third world artist and the society embraces all that. But after a while you got to break away from that.

B.A. You mean in some ways it’s a fetishistic approach?

S.MQ. I am not questioning people’s integrity. I mean there is so many ways of saying and doing things. And if only one way is being followed that’s kind of a problem.

Steve McQueen is a video artist and filmmaker living in Amsterdam and London.

Rabih Mroué dramatizes the phenomenon of disappearance… into an existential and political metaphor.
"Missing Employee": the thin line that lies between lies and the truth.

[…]

the eyes are focused on the scene. On the latter, a long table is laid, it is probably a desk; behind the table, a chair faces the audience. However, the chair is empty and will remain so for the rest of the play. "Missing Employee" is a play without theatre or actors.
There are three large screens on the back wall. One of the screens is placed in the centre of the scene, right behind the chair, and is framed by two other screens on both sides. Both these screens are placed a little higher up. Where are the actors? What surprise are we to expect from Rabih Mroué? Rabih Mroué is the author, the director and the interpreter of this work. He has accustomed us to the most unimaginable challenges in each of his new works. His work always sits on the thin razor edge that lies between the real and the imaginary. While we’re on the subject, where is Rabih Mroué? Could it be that he is waiting outside for us (in reference to his previous creation "Enter Sir, We Will Wait for You Outside" that was presented in 1998)?

Suddenly the "image" of the actor appears on the screen in the centre. He speaks to us as though he was a lecturer or television program host… The audience looks for the original, for the bodily presence of the actor. The reason we came to the theatre is to see a flesh and bone actor playing. In vain: the scene will remain empty, and we will soon find out that Rabih Mroué sits amongst us, in the same hall. Just as if, wanting to see his own performance, he would choose to sit himself comfortably with us, in the same hall, in front of a camera that would project his virtual presence onto the screen, in the centre of the stage.

[…]

This absence of the actor’s flesh and bone body, and this man who “hides” and delegates his presence to his image, is in an organic relation both to the subject and to the theme of his play. In this new creation, Rabih Mroué works on the poetry of the phenomenon of disappearance, in its symbolic dimension, as possibly being the only means or the only access to freedom for individuals that are trapped by a society of confessional, tribal, parental, or regional communities… The actor – in his own name - tells us that, at a particular moment in time, he started cutting out small ads in newspapers. These are all related to the disappearance of people (missing persons). He tells us how he started to collect them in a scrapbook (which makes me think of a sort of “chronicle of disappearance”, in reference to Elia Sleiman’s film).
Rabih Mroué looks at disappearance as one of the “signs of modernity" (!), meaning a sort of escapism, an escape through the thin cracks in the burden of the hegemony of communities. He says that his interests lies in the phenomenon of disappearance as a suspended existence, as the "death of the idea but not of the body"; when the individual “exists and does not exist at the same time, when he is both alive and not alive (…), absent but perhaps coming back”, which implies and imposes the renewed adjournment of everything, even that of tears…

The absence is thereby an aesthetic choice, a political and existential metaphor, the touchstone in the work of Rabih Mroué. The absence or disappearance of the actor, the author, the text; the absence or disappearance of the hero, the character, and the subject (do we need to add: the absence of the State, of the legal institutions, of justice and of logic? However, Rabih Mroué’s work is far from being charged with any ideological pretence), and finally, the absence or the disappearance of "the play" itself, which we came to watch. Because, (at least it would appear, but appearance is here the essence of the work), the only remains are these newspaper clippings, which have been carefully assembled and archived in three scrapbooks, of different colours and sizes. Three school copy books that the actor - narrator (who plays his own "real" character) handles, consults, and reads passages from, commenting, explaining, contemplating, synthesizing, while trying to untie the strings - that are inexorably intermingled - with an extremely complex, difficult, worrying, and strange story line. Bit by bit, the story is clarified, and the play builds itself through the keen effort of the actor to solve the enigma, to discover the secrets, and to make absence present.

[…]

A second camera, placed on top of Rabih Mroué and handled from the ceiling of the hall, films the articles that have been clipped and stuck in scrapbooks, the headlines, the dates, the photographs of the missing persons, and projects them onto the right-hand screen.

[…]

Additionally, another actor, who is mute, accompanies Rabih Mroué (Hatem Imam). He too is seated amongst the audience at the other end of the hall. He is making notes, on a white sheet of paper, the main facts, events, adventures, developments, and the notorious characters of the story. He achieves this through the means of plans, graphs, tables, family genealogical trees, statistics, etc., until he reaches a very significant chart, insofar as it manages not to reveal anything of this complex intrigue. A third camera films and projects this work onto the left screen

[…]

Rabih Mroué works reality on the basis of the following consideration: by competing in strangeness with the imaginary or the factious, reality (in itself) becomes an artistic creation, which is both complex and composed. Thus, Rabih Mroué continues, in his new creation "Missing Employee", his artistic research on the sense of the spectacle and of theatricality, playing on their extreme limits in order to better explore their possible functions today, in the era of Internet and of the multi-media. Once again, his deduction is the impossibility to know and recognize the theatre, such as we know it and such as we have become accustomed to it. And so, he deviates theatre from its natural course, trying out new means and novel techniques, swimming against the current, moving away from what we have already seen. Within the framework of contemporary Arab theatre. He goes towards the non-theatre, the non-play, in order to grace us with rare moments of “theatre”, of “theatricality”, and moments of communication. Rabih Mroué tries to tell us that from now on, theatre is elsewhere.

Pierre Abi Saab is a theatre critic and chief editor of the Lebanese cultural magazine Zawaya.

[Beirut]
Duration: around 1 hour 45 min.
A performance written and directed by: Rabih Mroué
performers : Rabih Mroué, Hatem Imam
Technical assistants: Feyrouz serhal, Lina Saneh, Ali Cherry.
Vioce coach: Lisa Ball-Lechgar
Décor: Samar Maakaron, Talal Chatila
Video - interview: Mohamed Soueid - Pamela Ghoneimeh
Assistant director: Maya Zbib
Translation: Ziad Nawfal
Photos: Houssam Mchaiemch.
Produced by: Christine Tohmé - Ashkal Alwan – Home works II - 2003 - Beirut.
(The premiere was in Theater Al-Madina – Beirut – on the 5th of November, 2003.)

Monday, September 30, 1996 - The first news: It appears in both al-Nahar and al-Safir newspapers: "Call from the wife of a missing employee" / "Wife appeals to the 3 presidents to reveal the fate of her husband".
What are the three presidents? In Lebanon, we mean by the three presidents the president of the republic who is Maronite; the head of the Parliament who is Shi'ite; and the Prime Minister who is Sunnite.
What is W.S., the wife of the missing employee, saying?
W.S.: "O you saviors of Lebanon from all the catastrophes that have plagued it, o you messengers of freedom, o you founders of a rightful state in the face of the law of the jungle, rescue me from this suffering that I'm enduring second after painful second. Last Wednesday, on September 26, 1996, my husband R.S. disappeared, leaving his family behind. If the authorities have him, it is my right to know. If some other faction disposes of him, it is also my right to know. His disappearance is the hardest of sufferings, the most extreme case of human and civic carelessness. All I ask is for my right to know, I beg you to grant me that right."

The following day, on the 1st of October, 1996, a small piece of news appears, related to the case of the missing employee from the Ministry of Finance, R.S.. The article says there has been an embezzlement of funds, estimated to be 3.5 billion Lebanese pounds plus 25,000 American dollars.
October 2nd , an article appears claiming there has also been an embezzlement in the Customs and Excise Department, as well as the Ministry of Finance. What's important in this article, is that it determines the exact amount stolen from the Ministry of Finance to be 4.5 billion Lebanese pounds. The same day, in al-Nahar, R.S. is accused directly of having stolen the money. The authorities were able to locate his car near Beirut, containing notes from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, as well as a cheque book.
October 3rd , R.S's wife publishes a reply against al-Nahar saying that her husband is not a thief.

October 4th , the first two big articles on R.S. are published in Al-Safir newspaper. Two pictures are featured in the article, one of himself, and the other of his wife. The first article is written by Ms. F.K., and the second by Mr. F.Kh.. In the first article, Ms. F. states that the official sources have determined the amount of embezzled money from the Ministry of Finance to be 35 billion Lebanese pounds, not 4.5 Billion.
In the second article, Mr. F. writes that R.S. has escaped to "Jazzin", and the missing money is there with him. In those days, "Jazzin" was still under Israeli occupation. He further states that the money found in S's car, amounts to approximately 3 billion pounds.

October 5th , in Al-Diyar, there is a new appeal from R's wife, under the title: "A story to reflect upon: are we allowed to think? If we are, then why not? Why not think of the crisis that I'm going through? R.S. is an artist, a Fine Arts graduate, he teaches sports, he was champion of Lebanon in several Arab championships, a dedicated employee at the Ministry of Finance, an ideal husband, and a giving father. He disappeared from his office on the morning of Wednesday the 25th , September 1996."
So, it wasn't on the 26th, as she told us at first.


(…)


October 9th , how did Mrs. W. find out about her husband's disappearance? She says: "My husband is a home loving man. He was late, so I called him on his mobile phone. It was turned off. I got worried. I called his brother, and told him that R. is late, and his mobile is turned off. Could you please go to the Ministry, find out if he's still in his office? The brother goes there, finds the office closed, but without the security chain. He gets scared. He thinks, what if something's happened to R's health? He asks the guard, to let him jump through the window and see if his brother is there. The guard accepts. He jumps through the window, but finds nobody there. By now, we are extremely worried. We contact all the hospitals, all the police stations, nothing! The next day, I go over to the Ministry, and tell the General Director that R. has disappeared. There is confusion and chaos at the Ministry. The General Director gives the order to break into his office. They break down the door, go in, then they come out, and say: there's 31 million missing. R. is a less-than-ordinary man. His belongings are obvious to the eye. Everyone knows what clothes he wears. The grocer knows what he spends. Suddenly, the world goes mad, and R. turns into a big thief. I said, so be it. To the government, I say, my husband is a thief, so bring him in, and let's put him on trial. Where's my husband? R. is fond of his home, gentle, sociable, he likes to have fun. His philosophy in life is to 'spend what's in your pocket today, and let tomorrow bring what it may'"…

October 10th , the price of Al-Diyar newspaper goes up to 1,250 pounds, its price increases by 250 pounds, while the case of R., on the other hand, lands on the table of the Parliament. Minister of Defense interrupts the speech of Minister of Finance, and accusations start flying. Minister of refugees, in turn, gets involved in these accusations, as well as Minister of Information and Minister of Tourism… Accusations, accusations… They don't agree on anything, but a parliamentary decree has to be issued eventually, so they consent at least on one sentence, which is the following: "The Administration is corrupt, and an end must be put to this decay"

Also on October 10th , R's wife is arrested for two reasons: one, the hiding of information concerning her husband, and two, covering evidence on the embezzlement of funds.
In Al-Nahar, the amount of stolen money, according to the latest sources, is said to be 42 billion pounds. Judicial sources confirm that the whole case will be resolved within 48 hours..
October 11th, in Al-Diyar, R.S. has escaped to Egypt. They state that 48 hours before his disappearance, R.S. had obtained a visa. Interpol is on his trail, because they fear that he might go to Brazil. In the Ministry of Finance, the first inventory concerning the embezzled money is done. The result is, and this time for sure, 10 billion Lebanese pounds.
October 12th , the two presidents, the Head of Parliament and Prime Minister, come on the scene. Head of Parliament states that "this case is a big one, and I want to pursue it 'til the end, and I want to uncover all the details, and make those that are guilty account for their deeds".
Of course, here he is hinting at the Minister of Finance, in order to put pressure on the Prime Minister. Why? Because the Minister of Finance is part of the Prime Minister's 'clique', and this is something from me to you. But the Prime Minister replies to the Head of Parliament, saying: "I'm going to open the case of the Council of the South, and I'm also going to pursue it to the end. There is information concerning the wasting of funds, and going directly into some people's pockets. This money belongs to the State, and the guilty ones are going to account for their deeds." Here, the Prime Minister is also hinting at the 'clique' of the Head of Parliament, to put pressure against him. This information is also from me to you.

Also on the same day, October 12th, R.S's wife is set free after 3 days' arrest.

(…)

October 16th, in Al-Nahar, an article by Emile Khoury, dealing with corruption and the case of the Ministry of Finance, states: "We all know who's stealing from the State… so why bother asking?"
In al-Nahar, there's nothing new concerning the stolen funds, with the exception of a small report, published in both al-Safir and al-Nahar, which claims there are no new developments, except that definitive judicial sources indicate the stolen funds range from 10 to 16 billion pounds.

Al-Diyar headline: "Will the government end its rule with a session of scandals?" Prime Minister addresses his ministers: "Today, our country is in the middle of three major scandals. The Ministry of Finance, Radio Lebanon, and the expansion of the phone network. I demand that each Minister explains what is going on with his Ministry."
As soon as the Prime Minister finished, the session turned into a fist fight, a battlefield, a miniature civil war, and accusations started flying from all fronts.
Eventually, one of them kept insisting to know how much money was missing from the Ministry of Finance.
Not too happy, the Minister of Finance replies: "40 billion pounds".
The Minister of Agriculture blows a long, long, long wolf whistle.
Prime Minister turns to him and says, "What's the matter with you, man? Don't you read the newspapers?"
On page 17, the Minister of Finance says something completely different. He insists that the stolen funds are much less than the reports say. He warns us: "Everything you read in the newspapers, everything you hear in the media about this particular case, is not true at all, there is no proof to sustain it."
What does he mean by that? Should we believe what we hear about other cases? I don't know, maybe we have to ask about this..

October 17th , a short news brief says that the government is ending its rule with a huge scandal in the Ministry of Finance, while at the same time its President is being decorated.

(….)

Rabih Mroue is a performance artist working in Beirut.

Iran was introduced to the ideas shaping the west through photography at the end of the 19th century.
Local architects began to introduce new ideas demanded by clients who wanted to use and imitate features seen in postcards and photographs from Europe.
A kind of ‘postcard architecture’.
Architecture and fashion were not the only things subjected to western influence.
Democracy as an idea if not in actuality had also arrived. This intensified expectations for change.
Piecemeal reforms began around 1925.
Oil explorations, mainly carried out by British Petroleum were bringing new wealth to Iran.This intensified modernization in Iran.
However the changes were superficial and had left the old social structures intact.
Tehran’s architecture is a post-war architecture influenced by what took place after the Allies’ invasion of Iran in 1941.
After the war the process of modernization began in earnest. Thus the population of Tehran began to increase with the arrival of people from the country side looking for work and a better standard of living.
The urgent need for housing resulted in ramshackle building practices, fraudulent business practices and the creation of slums.
According to Ali Madanipour “the Islamic revolution in Iran was a result of this improper development.” 1
A kind of self regarding, self preserving individualism which is a direct result of living under cruel and despotic dictatorship for generations has become a characteristic of Iranian society.
One manifestation of this fact can be seen in the absence of participation and citizenship, the lack of occupation of public domains, a lack of respect for the law, and the proliferation of independent and individualistic ie selfish behavior by the population. Under such conditions urban development remains questionable if not impossible.
Should we expect anything other than violation of urban development standards, environmental codes, and traffic laws in such circumstances?
These conditions are in fact the key to the forming of independent and self-made architecture by a society whose members have separately sought their own ways.

Popular Architecture
Tehran architecture can be called popular in the sense that it has been devised by the people of that city.
Impressed by social and political trends of the upper classes and professional architects, the people of Tehran created a ‘material-based architecture’.
A phenomenon that has persisted to date.
Due to the need for housing and the ever-increasing cost of land and property, as well as the high cost of construction, quality began to diminish.
Buildings were made using simpler plans and cheaper materials.
With maximum use of materials and prevalence of weak forms for building cheaper houses, the formal proportionality of the buildings changed.
That was a sign of lack of social participation in civil institutions and individual actions that the government has not had the possibility or the required resolve to encounter to date. Thus, here we witness a kind of architecture that is ‘popular’ or ‘people-made’, ‘independent and refractory’ and shaped with the kind of materials, i.e., it is ‘material-based.’


Material-based Architecture
Material-based architecture in Tehran can be identified for 40 years; yet the radical type has been seen for 30 years.
While the rising middle and upper classes in the 1970’s were building out of stone produced by imported technology, the poorer classes were using off-cuts ( 10 cm width at variable lengths ) from factories or left-overs from explosions from stone quarries to build facades in the south of the city resulting in what became known as ‘10 cm horizontal white marmarite architecture’.

At the same time in order to present a native alternative, Iranian architects were attempting to associate modern architecture with the motifs of tradition. They used the color and appearance of brick, which was the prevalent texture of existing traditional buildings, in their new projects. Available new technologies made it possible to produce bricks with a thickness of 3 centimeters, which were cheaper but gave the building a fresher look. Many people began to cover their existing facades with a layer of these new bricks.

All this coincided with the last years of Pahlavi rule. The years that according to Bernard Orchard were the years of emerging young citizens who were to play an important role in the revolution.2 Orchard suggests that Iran’s revolution occurs as a reaction against Pahlavis’ modernization plans. Excessive growth of population had caused irregular development of Tehran. The Shah, having departed from the tradition, that is, the governmental citadel, the mosque, and the bazaar, and migrating to the north of the city, had actually given the clergy and the traditional inhabitants of bazaar, the merchants the chance to reconstruct and reshape those neighborhoods. Ideologues influenced by leftist thoughts became the theoreticians who directed the revolution, a revolution that had a regressive look towards religious principles.

And so there occurred the biggest “‘post-modern’ movement” of history. Jahanbagloo quoting from Dariush Shayegan says that it was a point at which “tradition changed into ideology,”3 traditional prototypes were used as standards, therefore, traditional architecture was interpreted as Islamic architecture and formal structure and traditional motifs were used. Here, there was another event that Orchard calls the emergence of “revolutionary habitat.”4 The poor who triumphed in the revolution concentrated in the center of the city instead of their ramshackle neighborhoods. Orchard considers this phenomenon as a symbol of the invasion of Tehran by its inhabitants: “The city is ours and we determine the law, therefore we can build in the lands that we have (illegally) bought or confiscated. Tehran is our home.”5

According to Islamic rules, anyone who improves a land can claim its ownership. Thus, there were new areas and confiscated lands in which ill considered construction began to prevail. Brick facades were a symbol of ‘Islamic Architecture’. This meant the excessive production of 3 centimeter bricks, which were used in the construction of a large number of buildings, resulting in the previously mentioned ‘3 centimeter brick architecture’ of Tehran.

With the occurrence of the Iran Iraq war and the deterioration of economic conditions due to the costs and damages of the war estimated at 1,000 billion US dollars, construction work diminished significantly or was done in the poorest possible conditions. As a result, one could see a lot of unfinished or inferior quality buildings at different sites. After the war and with the beginning of a new development and reconstruction period, once again a lot of middle class provincials began to immigrate to Tehran. With the government’s policies for improvement of economical conditions in this period, there emerged new capitalist classes and neo-bourgeois that were idiomatically called ‘post revolution haves’.

This period coincided with the emergence of ‘Post Modern’ architecture in Europe and the United States which featured techniques like exaggeration and abstraction of traditional motifs in architecture. In Iran a vacuum was created by the lack of identity and confusion of architects due to the closing of universities (paradoxically for the ‘good’ of The Cultural Revolution). This was re-inforced by revolutionary ideological thought and civil conflicts and war. It seemed a good opportunity for architects to seek similar patterns in traditional and Islamic architecture revered by the government. Here again, there appeared odd combinations of prevalent cubic forms with motifs of traditional architecture used by the poor and the middle-class, as they wished. Iranian architects resorted to a post-modern that had not comprehended the modern.

That is to say, the resulting departure from modernism was without consideration for modernity’s critical wisdom. And thus, there appeared a new trend that was the result of the misconceptions inherent in post-modernism. In fact the line of people-made architecture in this period (1980’s) was spread all over the city and was not confined to the poorer neighborhoods. In combination with such motifs, the 3 cm brick architecture eventually developed into what became known as ‘white cement architecture’ with Classical western decorations such as carved capitals and pediments. Different combinations of every taste were applied and, to some extent, are being applied even today. Construction was flourishing in Tehran but since there was no coherent program, and the comprehensive plan of Tehran, which was prepared 5 decades ago was not efficient any more, the desirable facades hiding a severe qualitative decline; . Due to the increase of the prices of land and apartments in Tehran, balconies that used to have a calculation ratio of 1/3 to 2/3 of the area of the internal space were omitted or became too narrow, sometimes shrinking to only 60 centimeters. Maximal use of land and building in a given plot was, and still is particularly considered as the most important point, therefore, apartment houses of affordable small units with closed plans and limited skylights appeared everywhere. Non-standard decorative fireplaces and open kitchens that were in no way compatible with the traditional structure of Iranian society became fashionable. Newspapers were, and still are, full of ads for open kitchens fireplace and arc makers. Municipal rules regarding the provision of enough parking space for the buildings (on the basis of one apartment/one car) dictated the form of the structures and thus the plans were limited and similar, leaving no possibility of innovation. Violations of building codes, which can be seen in many buildings, were dealt with as a trivial nuisance by simply paying the related fines – another sign of lack of feeling for citizenship. Building codes such as the possibility of using 60% of the length of a lot plus 2 meters of projection with a bevel of 45 degrees (so that it could not overlook the neighboring homes, which is considered sinful according to the Islamic codes) imposed similarity and monotony on the form of the buildings. Interestingly, the bevel could be omitted with formal permission from neighbors and thus about 1 or 2 meters would be added to the area of the building -- an advantage regarding the high prices of the apartments. Allowing unconsidered accumulations and overlooking the standards and citizenship rights as well as the lack of a comprehensive 3 dimensional plan of the city for construction of high buildings caused infra structural, traffic, and environmental problems for Tehran. The problems still persist but are more controlled. All these problems were due to investment in construction which directly and indirectly involved 70% of businesses. Growth of capitalism and the new found wealth of neo-bourgeois who craved for noble architecture changed some neighborhoods. One could witness the demolition of a building everyday to transform eventually into alleys of uniform apartments with an amalgam of classical and ‘Iranian post-modern’ facades (as is called in Tehran). With the possibility of cutting and producing granite stones, which were quite expensive at about 50 US dollars per square meter, there appeared facades of granite at the lower parts of buildings and white cement compounds with decorative carvings at the higher parts. Due to the high cost of black and dark green granite and limited possibilities of production, they were produced in a width of 40 cm and unlimited length to minimize the remains. That created the ‘40 cm granite architecture’.

With the increase of people’s wealth and the simultaneous crisis the country was facing, there began a flow of Iranian investments in the United Arab Emirates. People who had traveled to Dubai for recreation (because of the lack of similar spaces in Iran) and shopping (because of the absence of foreign brands of clothes and household appliances) were impressed by the construction work in the young country that had attracted foreign investments. This architecture soon influenced the work in Tehran and in a decade has managed to transform the look of the city. Glass facades have appeared in Tehran without observance of the building codes and standards. A lot of both worthy and unworthy old facades have been combined with layers of glass. Recently other types of false facades intended to look modern have changed the appearance of the city. New coverings of different types of aluminum composites are also being used to give the buildings a more modern look.

Tehran can be called an architecture museum, since one might find everything in it though not much could be considered valuable, identity possessing, or even architectural. Recently, with the provision of more exacting codes, the town council is trying to control the construction work. But at present, the regulations are only applied to the internal areas of buildings and to reinforcement against earthquake which if happens, it is expected to claim the lives of more than a million citizens. This is because the people, and not the experts, have built the city. Tehran is a city with vast active fault lines.

With all its contradictions and inconsistencies, contemporary Tehran is a city built by its inhabitants, but not in a great social participation. They have built self-centeredly and as a kind of avoidance of social participation and urgency.

New globalization is affecting Iran and its capital Tehran. This is an opportunity for change which will occur with or without consideration for the structure of the city. If the present trends continue the changes will be superficial as they have been in the past. Tehran is in need of urgent and new city planning strategies which must happen with the consent and participation of its inhabitants.


footnotes:

1- Ali Madanipour, Tehran, The Making of a Metropolis (West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 1998)

2-Bernar Hourcade, Interview Ramin Jahanbeglou with Bernar Hourcade, Iran and Modernism ( Tehran, Goftar, 2000)

3- Ramin Jahanbeglou, Iran and Modernism ( Tehran, Goftar, 2000)

4-5- Bernar Hourcade, Interview Ramin Jahanbeglou with Bernar Hourcade, Iran and Modernism ( Tehran, Goftar, 2000)
There are deeply rooted social reasons for this improper development. There are deeply rooted social reasons for this improper development.

Arash Mozafari is an architect working in Iran.