Transnational Modernization and the Gendered Built Environment in : Altering Architectural Spaces and Gender Identities in the Early Twentieth Century (1925-1941)

A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in the School of and Interior Design of College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning

By

Armaghan Ziaee Bachelor of Architecture, 2009 Master of Architecture, 2013 Master of Arts, 2018

2018

Committee: Amy Lind, Ph.D. (Co-chair) Adrian Parr, Ph.D. (Co-chair) Edson Cabalfin, Ph.D.

Abstract

When Reza (1925-1941) came to power in Iran in 1925, he initiated a rapid and irreversible process of change that began in the public domain of the city and filtered into the private domain of the home. During this era of accelerated, westernized modernization, gender- segregated private housing, including courtyard houses, and gender-exclusive, masculine public spaces were repurposed relatively quickly and/or were replaced by modern villa-style houses/apartments and gender-inclusive public spaces. Over the years, as ’s policies of western-style modern houses, urban spaces, fashion, and design grew, he intensified his support for gender desegregation, most notably through banning women’s use of the (the traditional Iranian ) in public spaces. In this sense, the first Pahlavi modernization project of the built environment was constructed through a gendered lens of progress, in which physical structures, public and private spaces, and women’s (and men’s) very senses of embodiment and identity – in their homes, in public spaces, in regard to their dress – became a contested battleground at the center of broader struggles concerning modernity and in Iran.

This dissertation utilizes an interdisciplinary transnational feminist approach, rooted in qualitative research methods including archival and primary sources such as floor plans, architectural drawings, historical photographs, newspaper publications and popular magazines. I analyze how modern architectural, spatial, and social reforms during this period created tensions amongst women and men, leading both some to embrace the reforms as emancipatory and others to resist them in defense of “Iranian” tradition. My conceptual framework draws from architecture history; comparative studies of modernization and nationalism; studies of gender, space and architecture; and transnational feminist theory. It develops a transnational feminist historiography of Reza Shah’s modernization of the built environment, focusing on four key

ii aspects of this historical process: (1) The history of the modernization of architecture and urban space in Iran, also known as the “modern moment;” (2) modern urbanism and gender desegregation of the built environment; (3) the transition from courtyard to “modern” houses; and (4) the modernization of the ideal Iranian woman through Reza Shah’s laws and policies focused on domesticity, dress, and fashion. Ultimately this dissertation argues that Reza Shah’s project of modernization of the built environment is incomplete and contradictory at best: This process is best understood as a societal negotiation of modernization, westernization, secularization, traditionalism, and nationalization, including the proper “place” of women (and men) in public and private spaces in Iran.

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© 2018 Armaghan Ziaee ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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Dedicated

To my husband, Kianoosh Zarnegar, who believed in me and supported me all the way through to this level of achievement.

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Acknowledgements

Indeed, I cannot summarize all my feelings, experiences, accomplishments, and acknowledgments during this long journey here. This dissertation benefitted from the generous support of many individuals and institutions. I am grateful to all of them for having faith in my work: First, a Doctoral Scholarship from the School of Architecture and Interior Design at the

University of Cincinnati (UC) made it possible for me to begin my journey in the United States.

Several grants allowed me to conduct primary archival research in the United States: A UC

Graduate Student Governance Association Research Grant made possible my archival research at the United States in Washington, D.C. in December 2017. UC’s Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) awarded me a WGSS Graduate Student

Research Award to conduct archival research at Middle East Documentation Center in Chicago in Fall 2017. I am thankful to the staff of these and additional archives and institutions both in

Iran and the U.S. for their assistance. A National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) 2017

Honorable Mention for my graduate research in November 2017, demonstrating their faith in my work, motivated me to move forward with this project.

I owe a very special thanks to friends and professors at UC and other institutions who read and provided feedback on portions of my dissertation, offered valuable advice, and generally helped in so many ways. My dissertation committee co-chairs, Dr. Amy Lind and Dr.

Adrian Parr, read, listened, supported, and offered excellent criticism and comments throughout the process. Dr. Amy Lind was also my thesis advisor in my WGSS master’s degree program; she was there for me rain or shine and I especially thank her for believing in me, supporting me, and encouraging me to find my voice. Indeed, her inspiration, wisdom, and willingness to help in every sense throughout the years is overwhelming. Dr. Adrian Parr supported and guided me

vi throughout my time in the Architecture History, Theory, and Criticism doctoral program. I learned so much from her invaluable theory courses. I appreciate all of her feedback on my work.

Dr. Edson Cabalfin, with his unique pedagogy, suggested many valuable sources and materials during the writing of this dissertation. I thank him for serving on my doctoral committee. Dr.

Patrick Snadon provided invaluable historical architecture perspectives and generous input on my dissertation proposal. During my time studying in the WGSS department, I gained invaluable insights from a course on transnational feminisms that I took with Dr. Ashley Currier. Her course introduced me to major contemporary debates within transnational feminist theorizing, including how transnational feminist theorists work to decenter hegemonic western cultural referents. I also appreciate the invaluable interdisciplinary insights I learned in my Feminist Methodology course with Dr. Michelle McGowan. This course helped me realize how to apply feminist research into traditional disciplines and help transform them. I am also indebted to Mrs. Jamie

Pandey, a very supportive friend, for her editorial remarks and for her sage advice on different stages of my writing. I also thank Dr. Rebecca Williamson and Mrs. Kim Lawson for their help in navigating administrative aspects.

Finally, I thank my other half and life partner, Kianoosh Zarnegar, for his unconditional support and for accompanying me during archival research, sometimes for hours and hours, in many cities including , , Chicago, and Washington, D.C. My sister, Azadeh, with her Master of Architecture background, provided intellectual support and helped me with numerous library and archival investigations, particularly in Shiraz. She assisted me with my research and in finding primary and secondary sources in many more ways than I can begin to list here. My parents, Ziaeddin and Shahin, encouraged me and openly let me choose my path in life and offered emotional support day and night. I am so grateful to them for their support. My

vii brother, Ardalan, has always cheered me up since our childhood. Wherever I am today is because

I have all of these wonderful people in my life.

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Table of Contents Page

Abstract ii

Dedication v

Acknowledgements vi

List of Illustrations 3

Introduction: Understanding the “Modern Moment” in Early Twentieth- Century Iran

• Reflecting on my Grandmother’s Memories 5 • Methodological Approach 12 • Archives and Collections 14 • Significance of the Research 17 • Chapters Outline 20

Chapter One: A Transnational Feminist Historiography of Reza Shah Pahlavi’s Modernization Project: Theory, History, Context

• Introduction 24 • Historiography of Reza Shah Pahlavi’s Modern Urban and Architecture Development 25 • Review of the Interdisciplinary Literature and Theoretical Framework o Postcolonial and Transnational Feminisms 31 o Transnational Modernization 33 o Nationalism and National Identity 37 o Gender, Space, and Architecture 40 o On the Origins of Domestic Design and Domesticity 43

Chapter Two: A Country in Transition: Modernizing Space, Gender, and Nation

• Introduction 51 • Iran as an “Imagined Community,” Nationalism, and National Representation 52 • The Debates on Urban Changes and National Reforms 59 • Spaces of Domination and Resistance 76 • Conclusion: Transnationalism Within: Modernization, Nationalism, and Women’s Emancipation 86

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Chapter Three: Redomestication: From a Traditional Courtyard House to a Modern House

• Introduction 89 • Courtyard Houses, the Veil, Privacy, Visibility, and the Gaze 91 • Courtyard Houses, Social Hierarchies, Gendered Elements 100 • The Emergence of Modern Housing in Iran 109 • Women’s Role in her Modern Domicile 120 • Women as Active Users of Modern Houses 122 • Conclusion: Redomestication and Women’s Resistance 130

Chapter Four: Negotiating Space: Women’s Embodied Experiences of Western-oriented Modernization

• Introduction 133 • From a Multicultural Traditional Society to a Monocultural Modern Nation 134 • Proper and Improper Bodies in Modern Space 142 • Limited Mobility and Unlimited Surveillance 154 • Conclusion: The Paradox of Identity 158

Conclusion: Lessons from Public and Private Spaces of Negotiation

• Architecture and Gendered Identities in early Twentieth-Century Iran 161 • Concluding Thoughts and Future Notes 164

Bibliography 171

• Primary Sources o Archives in Iran o Archives in the United States o Periodicals (Newspapers and Iranian Academic Journals) • Secondary Sources

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List of Illustrations Figure Page

Fig 1.2: A cartoon in Setareh-e Sobh (The Morning Star). © MEDOC, . 58 Fig 2.2. A car company advertisement in Kushesh (The Endeavor), Day 1308/ December 1929, no.1 p.3. © MEDOC, University of Chicago. 62 Fig 3.2. A car company ad includes a “modern” woman (who looks European, not Iranian) driving a car as an example of women’s emancipation in Iran. From Ettelaat (Information), Bahman 1317/ January 1939, p.8. © The Library of Congress (The Iranian World section). 62 Fig 4.2. The statue of Reza Shah on Meidane Sepah (Sepah Square) in Tehran. Iran-e Emruz (Today’s Iran), Esfand 1317/ Februaury 1939, cover page. © MEDOC, University of Chicago. 65 Fig 5.2. A multi-story building in street. Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p.8. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic of Iran, Library, Tehran. 67 Figs 6.2: An Example of modern-nationalist architecture, Municipality Building in Tehran. The capitals of pillars imitate the pillars from Achaemenian palaces. Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p.5. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the of Iran, Library, Tehran. 71 Fig 7.2: Honarestane Dokhtaran (Girls’ College) in the 3rd Esfan Street in Tehran. Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p.5. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Library, Tehran. 75 Fig 8.2: Women and men were segregated in the same horse-drawn carriages. Nahid (Venus), 31 Ordibehesht 1305/ 22 May 1926, Year 5, no.66, p.4. © MEDOC, University of Chicago. 80 Fig 1.3: Inward-looking and outward-looking courtyard house orientations. © Drawings by author. 93 Fig 2.3: A schematic drawing of the views from courtyard houses to an outside alley (and from an outside alley to a courtyard house). © Drawings by author. 96 Fig 3.3: Forogh Al Molk House in Shiraz, Iran. This figure illustrates a corner of in this courtyard house. The inward orientation and tall walls prevented any visual connection between inside private spaces of the house and the outside public alleys. © Fars Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, Shiraz, Iran. 98 Fig 4.3: The main entrance door has decorations. This house belonged to Hossein Namazi’s family and preserved as an architecture heritage site in the city of Shiraz, Iran. © Fars Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, Shiraz, Iran. 100 Fig 5.3. Most courtyards had two door knockers, one for men and the other for women. The male door knocker had a rectangular shape and the female door knocker had an empty cylinder shape. © Photo taken in 2016 by author in Shiraz, Iran. 102

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Fig 6.3: The circled area is (vestibule) which literally translates to “octagonal.” It typically had an octagonal shape. From Manzel Anjavi House in Shiraz, Iran. © Fars Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, Shiraz, Iran. 103 Fig(s) 7.3 (a) and (b). Forogh Al Molk House in Shiraz, Iran. This courtyard house has andaruni and biruni quarters. © Fars Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, Shiraz, Iran. 105 Fig(s) 8.3 (a) and (b). Forogh Al Molk House in Shiraz, Iran. © Fars Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, Shiraz, Iran. 106 Fig 9.3. A villa-style modern house designed by European-trained architect Mohsen Furughi. Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p.218-219. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Library, Tehran. 115 Fig 10.3. Larger extrovert horizontal windows were one of the visual manifestation of modern houses. Arshitikt (The Architect), Bahman 1326/ January 1948, vol. 1, no. 5, p. 164. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Library, Tehran. 118 Fig 11.3. An American modern woman in a modern kitchen. Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p.205. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Library, Tehran. 125 Fig 12.3: A modern kitchen proposed as a prototype for Iranian modern houses. Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p.204. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Library, Tehran. 126 Fig 13.3. In this illustration a female author provided descriptions and ideas about modern decoration and modern lifestyle. She considered this design to be based on Louie the Fourteenth interior design. Zaban-e Zanan (Women’s Voice), “Zendegie Man,” (My Life), no. 8 (December 1944). © MEDOC, University of Chicago. 129 Fig 14.3. In this illustration a female author described the interior design of her bedroom. Zaban-e Zanan (Women’s Voice), “Zendegie Man,” (My Life), no. 8 (December 1944). © MEDOC, University of Chicago. 129 Fig 1.4. Iran-e Emruz (Today’s Iran), Tir 1319/ June 1940, no.4, pp.24-29. © MEDOC, University of Chicago. 136 Fig 2.4. “Afathaie Chehreh va Rahhaie Modavaie Aan (The Face Disease and its Curing Instructions),” Mehregan, Day 1317/ December1938, no.80, p.10.an advertisement about medicine a woman is featured as the patient who is seeing a male doctor. © MEDOC, University of Chicago. 146 Fig 3.4. The (Western!) woman is featured as a floating independent individual “Chera dar Ab Forou Nemiravad? (Why she is not sinking?),” Mehregan, Mehr 1317/ September1938, no.74, p.10. © MEDOC, University of Chicago. 148 Fig 4.4: Ghandghor oil advertisement. Ettelaat (Information), Khordad 1318/ 10 June 1939, no.3860, p.10. © MEDOC, University of Chicago. 149 Fig 5.4. Smith Premier Machine Tahrir (typewriter) Ettelaat (Information), Tir 1314/ 30 June 1936, no.2521, p.8. © MEDOC, University of Chicago. 150

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Introduction: Understanding the “Modern Moment” in Early Twentieth-Century Iran

Reflecting on my Grandmother’s Memories

The courtyard house, its blue central pool with a water fountain (), the hermetic surrounding garden of figs, pomegranates, citrus, and grape vines trees, the magical aroma of sour orange blossoms, the brick walls and stucco ornaments, the summer rooftop gatherings, the wooden doors with their metal door knockers, and the twisted narrow alleys of the city are all part of my grandmother’s childhood memories. She grew up during the Reza Shah Pahlavi era

(1925-1941)1 and often told me stories about her childhood. I was and still am fascinated with the way my grandmother and my other senior female relatives narrate their childhood stories.

Their stories reflect the many sudden reforms, dramatic political, economic, and cultural changes, and historical turning points in Iran’s history. They embody the complex and contradictory forms of negotiation, joyful acceptance, and collective resistance of these and many other women of the time period. The stories that began from their personal, embodied experiences (the realm of the body) carried into their “private” discussions and practices (the realm of the house) and were transformed at times into “public” communal performances (the realm of the city).

A common story told by my grandmother and other women of her generation, particularly middle and upper-class ’s major cities, is how they as female family members lived, socialized, and communicated in courtyard spaces; spaces that they romanticized through their stories. During her childhood, my grandmother rarely used spaces beyond the

1 There are two Pahlavi eras in Iran. The first Pahlavi era (1925-1941) was ruled by Reza Shah Pahlavi. This period has been viewed historically as a period of massive modernization of the built environment and of political, cultural and social relations, including the legally enforced unveiling of women (see Ch. 4). The second Pahlavi era (1941-1979) began during World War II, after forced abdication of Reza Shah. The second Pahlavi era was ruled by Reza Shah’s son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, until the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This period is well known for the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, among other important changes. In this dissertation I focus on the first Pahlavi era.

5 house. She and her female relatives rarely if ever gathered in public spaces (if any existed for women) in the city.

As a woman growing up in Iran in the 21st century, I cannot imagine myself being limited to inhabit only certain spaces or socialize only within certain boundaries. In fact, I would likely feel trapped. I cannot imagine not going to a café with my friends or not using public facilities and public transportation. My experiences of living in three countries, observing different cultures and recognizing how both material and figurative borders are created to socially and physically limit individuals and communities, especially communities that are minoritized or seen as inferior in dominant cultural and political framings, has made me realize that almost all borders are humanmade and socially constructed.

In early twentieth-century Iran, the organization of the family was based on the concept of the extended family. Most family members lived in one inward courtyard house with no windows to the outside alleys. In this housing typology, the rooms were located around the central courtyard and access to outside alleys and streets was through a single, primary entrance doorway (dalan). Many houses had one courtyard with gender-specific spaces allocated to female and male family members. Amongst affluent families in major cities such as Shiraz,

Tehran, , , , and (among many others), men and women had their own gender-specific courtyards. One, the andaruni quarter, was for female family members; the other, the biruni quarter, was for male members and their guests. Many rooms in the courtyard house did not have an identifiable purpose. The multifunctionality of the rooms, or the ability of the rooms to be converted to another function over the course of the day and night, made the house spaces livable for their inhabitants. In Chapter Three, I explain more in detail the characteristics of the courtyard house during this time period.

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My grandmother’s stories of the andaruni-biruni and the ways in which her experiences became radically different when she and her family relocated to a “modern,” more westernized house attracted my attention even more when I began to conduct research on the impact of Iran’s relatively radical, western-oriented modernization project, including the proposed desegregation of public and private gendered spaces, on women. My grandmother’s recollections of her relocation from a gender-segregated courtyard house to a desegregated “modern” house inspired me to compare and contrast the ways in which women’s daily experiences in spaces of the house are distinct from one housing typology to another and have been drastically transformed as a result of western-oriented modernization during the era of Reza Shah. In this dissertation, I retrace the social and physical freedom, independence, boundaries, and limitations that women experienced while socializing within the private spaces of each type of house. I also reexamine their experiences in newly constructed public spaces which historically provided a new, more gender-inclusive setting for a group of women (and men) to socialize.

Choosing this era as the focus of my research allows me to understand women’s (and men’s) experiences in the built environment during Iran’s first modernization project initiated by

Reza Shah Pahlavi (1925-1941) after the downfall of the Qajar (1789-1925). Reza

Shah’s reign is an important era to understand for many reasons. First, despite an array of socio- political, cultural, environmental, and ideological differences between Iran and the Orientalist west, Reza Shah utilized the language and logic of “westernization” to move the country forward into what he perceived as modernity in a very short time period. In so doing, and as a second point, Reza Shah’s western-oriented modernization policies and ideology help lay the foundations of the modern nation-state in Iran. Third, central to Reza Shah’s approach was his goal to develop and transform Iran through capitalist development. This modern form of

7 development – a concept introduced through western and linked to enlightenment notions of modernity and progress2 - included industrializing the economy, transforming state and societal institutions, upgrading urban infrastructure, developing a more cohesive national identity, secularizing the nation, and importantly, emancipating women from what Reza Shah viewed as traditional,3 oppressive practices. In this regard, women’s emancipation was central to all of Reza Shah’s reforms and to the birth of the Iranian nation-state.

Reza Shah’s modernization politics of the built environment, including his initiation of a rapid and irrevocable process of change, began in the public domain, at the city scale, and reached as well into the private domain of the house. From 1925 to 1941, the gender-segregated private housing and gender-exclusive public spaces were either physically altered relatively quickly or altogether replaced by modern villa-style houses, modern apartments (“modern houses”), and gender-inclusive public spaces. This was the time period when my grandmother relocated from a gender-segregated andaruni-biruni courtyard house to a modern house. Modern houses during this period in Iran refer to houses designed based on modern architecture principles. These houses were not inward oriented, had windows to the outsides alleys, had modern construction materials such as glass and cement. I discuss the characteristics of modern houses in Chapter Three in length.

2 See Escobar, A. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), and Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). 3 Throughout this dissertation, I use the terms traditionalism, tradition, modernization and modernity. Generally speaking, modernization primarily refers to a process by which a country “progresses” or is “developed” with the goal of becoming modern. Typically, modernization is based on a western ideal of progress. In contrast, tradition or traditionalism typically refers to local customs and longstanding cultural norms and practices, including “traditional” or conservative beliefs. I critically define and assess these terms in Ch. 1 and throughout this dissertation, particularly as they are often framed as binary opposites. I argue that in fact what we witness in the case of Iran (like elsewhere) is a more nuanced mix of the old and the new, of tradition and modernity, and of East and West.

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Reza Shah was so concerned about building and responding to what we would now call orientalist critiques of Iran as “backward” or “uncivilized” that he hired western and Iranian architects and urban planners to redesign and refashion private and public spaces in almost all cities in Iran. This occurred largely in a top-down fashion, and Reza Shah’s government assumed that Iranians would accept the reforms and adjust to them. In contrast, people including my grandmother often mention that these drastic transformations typically created tensions within families due to patriarchal,4 cultural, and religious traditions, and between families and the state due to the state pushing its westernization agenda on Iranians who wished to maintain their existing practices, including their existing ideas about gender relations.

These tensions and forms of passive and active resistance occurred primarily because the state and modernist architects and planners perceived the people (users) as passive consumers who simply accommodate their practices – and indeed, their bodies and appearance – to the newly- created modern public and private spaces.

As Reza Shah continued his reforms over the years, his policies of western-style modern houses, urban spaces, fashion, and design grew, and he intensified his support for gender desegregation, most notoriously through banning women’s use of the veil in public spaces. Reza

Shah viewed women’s dress, particularly the Chador (black cloth) and Pitche (face veil), as the main barrier for women socialization and to their more “equal” participation into modern public life. The Unveiling Act (Kashf-e ) and accompanying reform, which I discuss more at length in Chapter Four, was introduced in state documents and circulated nationally in

4 Deniz Kandiyoti describes patriarchy (and/or “classic patriarchy”) as a “a kinship system in a society in which men have rights over their female kin (while women do not have the same rights over themselves and/or their male family members). This patriarchal system is exemplified in the policing of women’s mobility, socialization, and sexuality. See Kandiyoti, Deniz. “Bargaining with Patriarchy.” Gender and Society 2, no. 3 (1988): 274-290. Also see Moghadam, Valentine M. “Hidden from History? Women Workers in Modern Iran.” International Society for (Taylor & Francis, Ltd, 2000): 384.

9 newspapers, women’s magazines, and other forms of media. The state used images of the modern nation and western discourses to rationalize and support women’s unveiling and dress reform. The state mainly proposed European and western clothing for women (and men).

Moreover, state planners encouraged young girls and women to become “modern” active participants and represent Iran as a modern nation. To further legitimize this project of

“modernity,” the state and its officials promised to emancipate women. They promoted women’s emancipation as a crucial step to normalizing and integrating women’s public participation.

Ironically, Reza Shah used force to remove women’s in public spaces, creating a deeply contradictory and conflictive setting for many individuals and families. The first Pahlavi modernization project was thus constructed through a gendered lens of progress. In this sense, women’s sense of embodiment, performance, and identity – in their selves (in regard to their bodies and dress), in their private homes, and in public spaces – was a first and primary battleground for broader struggles concerning Iranian modernity, nation-building, and the state’s top-down reforms.

Given this complex and conflictive context, it is crucial to understand the gender dimensions of the built environment as central to Reza Shah Pahlavi’s top-down reforms. It is also important to ask, as the first Pahlavi era “unveiled” Iran’s western-style modernization, in what ways did women and men benefit from these transformations of public urban space and private domestic space? How did European-trained modern Iranian architects and urban planners commissioned by Reza Shah’s state redesign and refashion Iranian urban and domestic spaces?

Faced with dramatic new changes in their built environment, in what ways did women experience collective social emancipation or conversely face persistent or new inequalities? At the same time, for women who did not want to be seen in the public domain without wearing a

10 veil, what consequences did they face and how did the architecture of the built environment facilitate their access or prevent their mobility? These are the questions I ask in this dissertation.

I analyze the extent to which the first Pahlavi modernization project of the built environment was successful, and the extent to which it remained an incomplete and/or paradoxical project, particularly as viewed through a gendered lens.

While other scholars have addressed the broader consequences of eras of modernization in Iran, this dissertation uses a transnational and intersectional lens to understand how Iranian women utilized, negotiated, appropriated, forged, and/or resisted the imposition of “modern” desegregated public and private spaces. I address how imposed concepts of western-oriented modernization combined with ideas on nationalism were interpreted, justified, modified, and contested in unique ways across time and space during this era. The modern architecture culture that came about through Reza Shah’s policies, coupled with his gender reforms, exemplify the ambiguities, complexities, and contradictions that emerge in most any encounter between imposed and imported ideas and the local realities of families and communities that are affected by the reforms. In this sense, this dissertation sheds light on later periods in Iranian history, including the Islamic Republic (1979-present), and provides conceptual and methodological framings for understanding rapid changes in the built environment, western-oriented modernization, and top-down state reforms in other regions as well.

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Methodological Approach

I utilize qualitative research methods in this interdisciplinary dissertation including archival research, oral history, and discourse, cultural, and textual analysis. I examine a wide range of historical archives and primary sources in both Persian and English (I describe this material in detail below in the “Archives and Collections” section of this chapter). The process of qualitative research can be inductive. In qualitative inductive research, the researcher builds abstractions, concepts, hypotheses, and theories from details. My qualitative inductive methodological approach includes architectural, historical, and feminist epistemological methods. This interdisciplinary approach allows me to explore and understand the intertwined relationships among processes of modernization, architecture, space, gender, and nationalism through a transnational feminist architectural lens. Moreover, this dissertation considers gender, race, ethnicity, and class in its discussions and as such my approach is also intersectional in that I privilege gender given its primacy in Reza Shah’s vision of modernity, yet I analyze gender relations as they intersect with class, national identity, race, ethnicity, and geographic location

(e.g., urban/rural) whenever possible.

Through discourses and visual analyses of architecture, in this research I conduct a spatial and formal analysis of architectural transformations of the time period. Reza Shah initiated an irreversible process of change that began in the public domain, typically at the city scale, and filtered into the private domain of the house. For example, many traditional buildings were destroyed to widen the streets and modern houses were built with an entirely new conception of private space usage in mind. My formal analysis reveals the similarities and differences in traditional and modern construction materials, design components, and stylistic decorations. My spatial analysis considers the socio-cultural aspects of the design in traditional vs. modern

12 spaces. Formal and spatial analysis paved the way for a comparative analysis of different characteristics of the floor plans of courtyard houses vs. modern houses. For example, I examine the function of spaces (or rooms), their arrangement, their orientation, gender divisions within these spaces, and the visual dimensions of these spaces. This discourse and visual analysis reveals the constancies, shifts, and conversions of private domestic architecture of Iran.

I also utilize feminist standpoint theory in this dissertation to understand how marginalized groups of people, including women, develop alternative “standpoints” and forms of knowledge based on their experiences of marginalization. Scholars such as Donna Haraway

(1988) and Sandra Harding (1993) have contributed to the development of standpoint epistemology and theory. Feminist standpoint theorists argues that knowledge is socially constructed and situated and, as a result, underrepresented groups and minorities’ experiences are invisible in mainstream theories told through the lens of hegemonic groups. Feminist standpoint theory promotes and seeks to make visible subjugated knowledge produced by marginalized groups like women; groups oppressed “without a voice” in history. Through standpoint theory, we learn that marginalized groups typically understand and necessarily live by both knowledge production of dominant groups and their own alternative knowledge production that better reflects their experiences. Their subjugated forms of knowledge are often unrecognizable by dominant groups. In this dissertation, my standpoint as an Iranian woman familiar with the context of Iran and also the ways in which I share and analyze the stories of marginalized women creates a unique context to reveal how “public” and “private” spaces were (and continue to be) gendered, and how women in Iran experienced and negotiated these gendered spaces during

Reza Shah’s modernization project. This methodology contributes to feminist architecture

13 historiography in a unique way, mainly from the standpoint of disenfranchised groups neglected in the historiography of architecture due to architecture methodological limitations.

Moreover, this study incorporates a transnational feminist approach to its analysis. I believe that it is an ongoing endeavor to understand and develop a genealogy or historiography of women’s rights and gender issues beyond the conceptual boundaries of the United States and the west. Historical and archival works are key to understanding how contemporary forms of knowledge get constructed. While in the historiography of architecture the word “international” or “global” exists and creates a power dynamic between western and eastern countries in a way that western architecture canon often times colonize and Orientalize the architecture narratives of the east. For example, often the architecture of the Middle East monolithically characterizes as

Islamic architecture full of motifs or decoration, and/or the ancient architecture of palaces in Iran or elsewhere as full of enigmas and mysteries. Thus, I believe a transnational—context and time specific—method create room for the de-colonialization of architecture history canon.

Archives and Collections

The data collection, mainly historical, is a crucial part of this dissertation. Historical data on early to mid-twentieth century Iran from various sources provide an opportunity to piece together the political, cultural, social, economic, gendered, and architectural aspects of the impacts of Reza Shah’s modernization project on women and men. My historical archival research focuses on the events happened between 1925-1941 period. For the main data of this study, I examine a wide range of archival and primary sources. The range of sources assembled to examine the research objectives includes but is not limited to material cultures such as floor plans, architectural drawings, cartoons illustrations, and historical photographs of people and

14 spaces. I also analyze visual and textual materials published in professional journals, official newspapers, and women’s magazines.5 The memories and stories of those individuals who experienced and lived in courtyard houses, apartments, and public spaces provide a great insight on individuals’ socio-cultural, economic, political, and gender experiences during the years of radical change. As a result, this study benefited from books from the time period, particularly

Persian literary novels. I delineate and categorize these archives in the sources section of this dissertation.

I carried out the fieldwork and data collection for this research project in Iran and the

United States. During the summer of 2016, I visited the Archives of the Organization for

Cultural Heritage in Shiraz, Iran. I bought and collected the stacks of newspaper publications from early twentieth-century Iran from a private collector and from the national Iranian news agency Ettelaat (Information). I also visited the National Library and Archives of Iran in Shiraz and I reviewed several volumes of the Reza Shah government’s Salname Pars (Persian

Yearbook). Many volumes of Salname Pars include valuable primary documents about demographics, geographical information, developments and news stories during the time period, and the governmental policies and agendas of Reza Shah.

I also collected all six issues of the architecture journal Arshitikt (The Architect) at

Ketabkhane-ye Melli-e Jomhuri-ye Eslami-ye Iran (National Library of Iran’s Islamic Republic).

This journal published only six issues over a two-year period between August 1946 and July

1948. Arshitikt includes architectural drawings, project photographs, and substantive articles on the architecture and urban planning of Iran. These materials and evidence were collected and

5 The primary archives have been analyzed through a qualitative, inductive, historical research approach and serve as the basis of my research findings. I use the triangulation method to analyze research materials. For example, I examine floor plans, photos, and textual documents to check the validity of the results.

15 written by early modernist European-trained Iranian architects and planners. In many ways, the

Arshitikt provides original summaries of the works of European-trained modernist architects during the Reza Shah period.

Another place that I visited in search of secondary sources was the Regional Information

Center for Science and Technology (RICeST) in Shiraz, Iran. The center provides access to peer- reviewed articles in Farsi. Scholars located in Iran published various articles on the well-known monumental or state-sponsored buildings such as palaces, banks, and schools that were constructed during the era of Reza Shah. Their publications are mainly descriptive and informative. I purchased fifty journal articles from the center for the further study and triangulation of my data. I also visited Sazmane Mirase farhangi va sanaie dasti va gardeshgari

(Fars Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization) and collected a number of floor plans and photographs of the courtyard houses that were built during the era of Reza Shah and still remain in the city of Shiraz. I use these drawings in my analysis.

Besides doing archival research in Iran, I conducted archival research at two key archives in the United States: The US Library of Congress in Washington, DC and the Middle Eastern

Documentation Center (MEDOC) at the University of Chicago. In October 2016 and December

2017, I visited the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C with two weeks of massive archival research in the Iranian World section. The Iranian world section has rich collections of original

Farsi-language newspapers and magazines from twentieth-century Iran. I also visited MEDOC twice: In April 2017 and again in December 2017. At MEDOC I accessed Reza Shah’s official

Farsi-language newspapers and yearbooks. Most of these archives were available on microfilm.

At these two sites I gathered and analyzed approximately 3,500 documents including official newspapers, independent newspapers, and women’s magazines published during the first

16

Pahlavi era. For example, I gathered and analyzed documents from Ettelaat (Information),

Women’s World (Jahane Zan), Alam-e Nisvan (Women’s World), Iran-e Emraz (Iran of Today),

Taraqqi (Progress), Khalgh (The People), Setareh-e Sobh (The Morning Star), Zaban-i Zanan

(Women’s Voice), Nahid (Venus), Aflak (The Heavens) and Kushesh (The Endeavor). These archival sources have been invaluable and contain a depth of information that is essential for contextualizing my research questions, argument, and research findings. Among others, these archives explicitly illustrate how Reza Shah’s government participated in the censorship and domination of the press and at the same time how it participated in the development of the independent newspapers. Finally, I benefitted from resources of the University of Cincinnati

Library and OhioLINK. All of these resources allowed me to piece together my analysis of gendered modernization and nationalism during Reza Shah Pahlavi’s reforms of the built environment.

Significance of the Research

First and foremost, the interdisciplinary and intersectional conceptual and methodological approach I utilize in this dissertation is original in the field of Architecture History, Theory, and

Criticism. My approach draws from two often separate disciplines: Architecture History, Theory, and Criticism and Women’s and Gender Studies, and allows me to integrate a unique interdisciplinary theoretical framework. In it, I examine the interplay among the concepts of architecture and modernization; space and gender; and nationalism and identity using an Iranian transnational feminist lens. This dissertation, therefore, contributes to an increasingly important discussion about gender, architecture, and the built environment, including in Iran, the Middle

East, and elsewhere. To date, scholarship on gender in the architectural history of the Middle

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East is very limited. Furthermore, scholars treat the Middle East and/or Iran as one monolithic representation or as a single, unified, and homogenized region or nation. This research challenges these orientalist stereotypes and assumptions about Iran.

Second, very few studies of architectural history and theory in Iran and/or the Middle

East have examined Iranian experiences of modernization outside a linear, teleological lens.

Reza Shah implemented western-oriented modernization reforms; however, the ways in which modernization unfolded in Iran (both in terms of state policies and citizen responses) cannot be understood through a western canonic definition of modernity, which assumes that a transition from a traditional society to a modern society is complete. In this research, rather, I argue that the western-oriented modernization project that occurred during Reza Shah Pahlavi’s reign is an incomplete and contradictory project at best. Indeed, we witness competing ideas about modernization during this time period, include what some might later call “Islamic modernization” vs western modernization.6 There is no sole definition of modernity within nor across nations and regions; I thus situate this project in the context of comparative modernization studies.7

Third, in a similar vein, ideas about modernization and modernity must be understood both spatially and also temporally. When understood through spatial and temporal lenses, we can see that Reza Shah’s seemingly singular, top-down modernization project created widely disparate experiences amongst families and communities and led to a wide range of responses to state hegemony, including through resistance. Mainly because applying a “western” ideology

6 Inayat, Ḥamid and History E-Book Project. Modern Islamic Political Thought. 1st ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982). 7 See Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996) and Keating, Christine. Decolonizing Democracy: Transforming the Social Contract in . (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011).

18 and project in a non-western context while no one in the host society is entirely educated about its vast dimensions can only bring ambiguities and paradoxes for the members of the host society. This is why, I argue, what Iran experienced as a project of modernity during Reza Shah era was an intersection of modernization, westernization, secularization, traditionalism, and nationalization simultaneously.

Fourth, very few scholars have focused on gender issues in the history of modern architecture in Iran. Gender and the built environment is a new frontier in Iranian historiography.

To date, many architectural studies and publications (particularly in Farsi) on Reza Shah’s modernization reforms take a descriptive approach. In particular, many of these studies focus on the spectacle of the state’s monumental architecture, modernist architects, and their design, and/or architectural forms and form-making. Women’s and men’s gender roles and relations, which both help produce and are products of the built environment, remain veiled and/or left unexamined within the patriarchal structure of these modern narratives. In addition, most studies do not mention, let alone see or understand, how architects’ own gender biases are embedded in their architecture and thus in the broader built environment.

In my focused research on gender and the built environment in Iran during the era of

Reza Shah, I place different groups of Iranian women and their lived experiences as central to this dissertation. This dissertation is one of the first studies of its kind to analyze women’s agency in shaping and reshaping modern architecture discourses in Iran and the Middle East, and to examine how ideas about gender shape architecture discourse. In this way, it contributes to increasingly-important discussions about women and gender in the Middle East, including their representation, partisanship, and agency in social transformation and in forging national identities. Several modernization reforms, spanning ideologies, have opened spaces and provided

19 opportunities for women’s participation in various social, political and cultural affairs in Iran; however (and perhaps ironically, if it were not for patriarchy), the representation of women in the history of modern Iran has been largely ignored. In this dissertation I argue that without considering the gender dimensions of and women’s roles in constructing and negotiating top- down state modernization of the built environment and formation of national identity, any historical understanding of modern architecture in Iran is incomplete.

Finally, it is my hope that this dissertation serves as a form of advocacy and encourages architects, feminists, and scholars particularly from the Middle East and Iran to become more aware of their roles when writing their histories. The positionality and standpoint of us as feminist historians and how we historicize the production of spaces of defiance is important for social justice. It is our role to write histories of actors shaping the built environment outside the traditional boundaries of the discipline. This work, in its critical feminist approach, interdisciplinary methodology, and theoretical framework “unveils” women’s experiences and their agency in the formation of the modernized built environment in early twentieth century

Iran. It highlights a neglected gap in the architectural . In addition, it is a unique contribution that enriches the modern architecture canon regionally and transnationally in the

Middle East by making visible the histories of disenfranchised and marginalized groups. The topic of this dissertation is historical; however, I hope its recount of twentieth-century Iran influences the present and future of Iran.

Chapters Outline

The remainder of this dissertation includes four chapters and the conclusion. In each chapter I examine different scales and aspects of Reza Shah’s modernization of the built

20 environment. I begin with a broader-scale analysis of the relationships among modernization, gender, and nationalism in urban public spaces. I continue by discussing the domestic private space of the house. I then focus on personal self-contained spaces (i.e., dress-code). The chapters together compose a collective critical investigation of women and modernization in early twentieth century Iran.

In Chapter One, “A Transnational Feminist Historiography of Reza Shah Pahlavi’s

Modernization Project: Theory, History, Context,” I develop my conceptual framework for understanding the gender dimensions of Reza Shah’s modernization project and women’s (and men’s) responses to these reforms. In it, I utilize a transnational feminist approach to understand key concepts used in my data analysis and findings, including modernization, nationalism and national identity, gender and architecture, transnational feminisms, and domesticity.

Chapter Two, “A Country in Transition: Modernizing Space, Gender, and Nation,” offers a critical overview of urban transformations in Iran’s major cities, from traditionally inward structures to a modern open arrangement. It also examines the modernization of urban spaces and the symbolic role of nationalist architecture. The controversy within gendered nationalism and its relation to the modernization of urban spaces was a turning point in the history of women’s social participation during this period. Some women (and men) resisted Reza Shah’s modernization reforms, including his 1936 Unveiling Act; other women embraced them. Using a transnational feminist lens, one of the major aims of this chapter is to contextualize women’s lived experiences in Iranian cities and pinpoint the role of architectural change in specific groups of women’s negotiation, acceptance, and/or resistance of Reza Shah’s reforms. Among others, I address how, in a political climate of enormous contradictions, architecture was a physical tool of resistance against modernity and state power, yet simultaneously was (re)visioned as an

21 auxiliary apparatus of confrontation with traditionalism and patriarchal ideologies. For example,

I demonstrate how feminized spaces of courtyard houses (andaruni) that were once considered spaces of seclusion and captivity for women, sometimes became a site of collective solidarity and gathering during this period.

Chapter Three, “Redomestication: From a Traditional Courtyard House to a Modern

House,” details the existence of courtyard houses and its various typologies within Iran and the

Middle East. In this chapter, I describe how the inward orientation and architecture design of this type of housing embodies social and gender hierarchies that resulted in creation or prevention of the politics of vision, access, and privacy within and beyond the house. This chapter then aims to map ideas about the gendered architectural elements in courtyard houses that facilitated the further segregation of genders. Besides, I explain the ways in which the state and European- trained Iranian architects subsequently viewed and proposed the modern villa-style houses and apartments as a healthier and “more advanced” housing typology. They viewed the transition from segregated domestic spaces of the courtyard house to modern houses as revolutionizing domesticity in Iran. Furthermore, modern architecture was assumed to be as a medium that could discipline and direct women’s performance and hence women’s roles inside the house. I analyze traditional vs. modern domestic spaces to understand women’s connections to domesticity and domestic spaces. Wherever possible I elucidate whether and how this transition altered women’s connections to domesticity and domestic space after families’ relocations to modern houses.

Chapter Four, “Negotiating Space: Women’s Embodied Experiences of Western-oriented

Modernization,” examines women’s negotiation of personal space within both private and public spaces. Generally, at the time young girls and women were required to negotiate their personal spaces and their dress-code with state officials, the conservative society, cultural tradition, and

22 patriarchal ideologies; what Deniz Kandiyoti (1988) has called “bargaining with patriarchy.”8

For example, one common result was that the rapid reforms in the usage of public and private space created anxiety and cultural shock amongst the traditional society of Iran. This resulted in patriarchal (male guardians’ and clerics’) opposition to women’s socialization and public participation, and to all gender-desegregation policies. Furthermore, the intertwined notions of modernization, nationalism, hygiene, and fashion contributed to new ideals about the modern

Iranian woman, again causing much anxiety and cultural shock by men who defended patriarchal ideologies and women who felt uncomfortable utilizing desegregated spaces and/or appearing in public without traditional dress (also because they were retaliated against by their husbands or other male members of their families). Paradoxically, the state’s top-down Unveiling Act and spatial reforms turned newly-desegregated public spaces into the state’s constant site of surveillance.

In the Conclusion, “Lessons from Public and Private Spaces of Negotiation,” I summarize my research conclusions, illuminating how these different scales and aspects of Reza

Shah’s modernization of the built environment created a wide range of often-contradictory experiences amongst and responses from groups of Iranian women. In it I address the crucial role of architecture as providing spaces of inclusion, exclusion, and/or liminal spaces of negotiation. I conclude with my argument that spatial tactics, public spaces, and architectural elements are gendered sites of domination, subordination, control, and surveillance, yet also terrains of resistance, transformation, and freedom.

8 Kandiyoti, Deniz. “Bargaining with Patriarchy.” Gender and Society 2, no. 3 (1988): 274-290.

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Chapter One: A Transnational Feminist Historiography of Reza Shah Pahlavi’s

Modernization Project: Theory, History, Context

Introduction:

After the downfall of the (1789-1925), Reza Shah Pahlavi (1925-1941) took power in Iran. By assuming the role of the , he attempted to modernize Iran. He established a modern industrialized economy with banks, modern communication networks, and infrastructure (e.g., roads), and a modern educational system with universities. Reza Shah realized that he could not entirely “modernize” Iran, which meant for him introducing westernized architectural, spatial, political, economic and social reforms, when half of the population was segregated in the domestic space and did not participate in social life. He used the language of nationalism to include women in modernizing Iran (with their male counterparts) and in many of his speeches he called Iranian women the mothers of the new nation. For example, he encouraged women to participate in social life and promoted women’s work. He advocated for women’s education and constructed many schools for girls.

To forward his modernization goals, gender desegregation politics stood at the center of

Reza Shah’s politics. This was present in the architectural design, spatial design, and the usage of space. For example, he ordered the construction of gender inclusive modern public spaces such as cinemas, theaters, parks, among many more. He (and modernist architects in Iran) further proposed modern houses as a healthier and advanced housing typology in comparison to the existing courtyard houses. The introduction of modern houses challenged many traditional divisions of gender and hierarchies in the architecture of domestic spaces during that time. Not surprisingly the state top-down demands for modernization and its homogenization of the population (claiming they all have same desires) were not accepted by all the members of the

24 society of Iran. While elite and middle-class families mainly accepted and welcomed his modern reforms in opposing to cultural taboos and as a way to progress, working class, and religious families opposed the state reforms as an intervention into their religious beliefs, cultural norms, and private life. The latter particularly opposed the reforms that have targeted modernization of women such as the Unveiling Act of 1936.

Given this historical background, the theoretical framework of this study draws from at least three interdisciplinary areas of scholarship: postcolonial and transnational feminist theories; comparative modernization studies; theories of nationalism; and theories of gender, architecture, and domesticity. In this chapter, I offer a background of western and non-western definitions and explorations of the theories I utilize in this dissertation. Certainly, there is no single comprehensive theoretical framework that can explain the interplay of modernization of the built environment, gender relations, domesticity, and nationalism in Iran. Instead, to propose a clearer picture of the study’s research goals, this dissertation aims to reveal how these theoretical concepts are interconnected.

Historiography on Reza Shah Pahlavi’s Modern Urban and Architecture Development

Many Iranian scholars, living both abroad and in Iran have discussed architecture during

Reza Shah period as being a locus of Iranian ancient revitalization, nationalism, and modernization. Generally Iranian scholars based in Iran, including Mustafa Kiani (2006); Negar

Hakim (2000); Muhammad Karim Pirnia (1990 and 1993); Gholamhossein Memarian (1990,

1996, and 2006); Vahid Ghobadian (2013); and Amir Bani Masoud (2009) examine the technical

25 aspects of as the basis for their studies.1 They describe Reza Shah’s modernization as Iran’s unprecedent step toward modern architecture and urban planning. A number of these Iran-based scholars critique Reza Shah Pahlavi’s modernization goals and claim that his ideologies went against the traditional architectural . For example,

Gholamhossein Memarian (2006) romanticizes the idea of the traditional courtyard house architecture and its segregated spaces, viewing this form of “privacy” as local tradition and culturally in Iran. Or for example Amir Bani Masoud (2009) critiques Reza Shah for destroying the organic urban fabric of traditional cities in favor of modern urban planning.

Scholars such as Talinn Grigor (2005; 2009), analyze the history of Iranian architecture from a wider range of perspectives.2 Grigor, for example, investigates the reconstruction plans during the Reza Shah era (which were highly influenced by western architectural practices), and

1 Kiani, Mustafa. Mi’mar i durah Pahlavi avval: digarguni andishaha, paydayash, va shikl giri mi’mari durah bist mu’asir-i Iran, 1299–1320 (Architecture Under the First Pahlavi Period: The Formation of Modern Iranian Architecture, 1920–1941), (Tehran: Mu’assasah Tarikh Mutali’at-i Mu’asar-i Iran, 1383/2006); Hakim, Negar. “Tahavvul-i mi’mari maskan-i Irani dar dahihay-a nakhusta qarn (The Changes in Iran’s Residential Architecture at the Turn of the Century),” (Mi’mar ( Architect), Bahar 1379/Spring, vol. 8, 2000): 65–8. Pirnia, Mohammad K. Ashnayi ba mi’mari islami Iran: gunih shinasi darungara, (Introduction to of Iran: Inverted Types), (Tehran: Science and Technology University Press, 1371/1993); Memarian, Gholamhossein. Ashnai ba mi’mari maskuni Iran (Introduction to Residential Architecture of Iran), (Tehran: Science and Technology University Press, 1375/1996); Pirnia, Mohammad K. Iranian Architectural Styles [Compiled by Gholamhossein Memarian, in Persian], (Tehran, Iran: Institute of Islamic Art Publication, (1990)): 30-32; Gholamhossein Memarian, Introduction to Housing Typology in Iran: Courtyard Houses, [in Persian] (Soroush-e-Danesh Publications, Tehran: 2006); Ghobadian, Vahid. Theories and Styles in Iranian Contemporary Architecture, (sabk shenasi va mabanie nazari dar memari moaser Iran), (Tehran: Elme Memar, 1392/2013); and Masoud, Amir Bani. Memari-e Moaser-e Iran, dar Takapouy-e Beyn-e Sonat va Modernite (Iranian Contemporary Architecture, An Inquiry into Tradition and Modernity), (Honar-e Memari-e Gharn, Tehran, 2009). 2 The scholars who are doing their studies in English are mainly educated in the west. For example see Grigor, Talinn. Building Iran: Modernism, Architecture, and National Heritage under the Pahlavi Monarchs, (New York: Periscope Publishing Ltd, 2009) and Grigor, Talinn. “Cultivat(ing) Modernities: The Society for National Heritage, Political Propaganda and Public Architecture in Twentieth-century Iran,” (PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005).

26 the ways in which these plans replaced the traditional methods of construction and urban design.3

She studies style tombs of precious Iranian poets and highlights the role of the

Society for National Heritage (SNH), in promoting the rhetoric of nationalism in Iran. She viewed these reforms as positive. The urban history of the city of Tehran has also been investigated by many scholars. For example, Mina Marefat (1988) discusses and analyzes the structural elements of the traditional Islamic city and the ways in which these elements serve as a reference point for evaluating modernization during Reza Shah’s reign.4 These two studies, in particular, illustrate a common trace within the aesthetic, spiritual, and physical aspects of architecture during Reza Shah.

However, there is little if anything written on gender and architecture and/or gender and space in Iran (particularly during the Reza Shah era). One recent exception is architectural historian Pamela Karimi’s book, Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran: Interior

Revolutions of the Modern Era. In it, she surveys more than ten decades of Iranian domesticity from the late Qajar to contemporary Islamic Republic on Iran. She argues that “the home, as both physical entity and metaphor, is essential to the understanding of social power structures in studies focusing on gender and postcolonial themes and of theories regarding the critical links between space and identity.”5 Karimi focuses on the home and home culture and illuminates how

Iranians themselves became agents of change in their own history. She argues that since early modernization and westernization in the Qajar era, Iranians did not accept the imposed western- oriented changes by the state (or other colonial powers), instead they were the ones who chose what to accept and bring into their everyday life in contexts of rapid structural change. She

3 Ibid. See also Grigor, Talinn. “Recultivating ‘Good Taste’: the early Pahlavi Modernists and their Society for National Heritage.” Journal of Iranian Studies 37. 1 (2004): 17-45. 4 Marefat, Mina. “Building to Power: , 1921-1941” (Ph.D. diss., MIT, 1988). 5 Karimi, Pamela. Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran (Oxon: , 2013): 6.

27 states, “[M]odernization pushed Iranians into a new space, in actuality as well as in abstract terms. This new space was furnished with cultural conversions, including new notions of taste, beauty, and consumption.”6 Karimi further highlights the latter does not simply mean that flow of western commodities to Iran had not change the normalization of nuclear family life or the interiors of domestic spaces. Chapter Three of this dissertation builds upon her arguments about domesticity during the first Pahlavi period and analyzes the gender implications of modern architecture in detail.

Another important exploration of gender identity during the early twentieth-century Iran is Camron Michael Amin’s (2002) discussion of the cultural production of “modern Iranian womanhood.” He examines Reza Shah’s controversial state feminist project, commonly known as the “Women’s Awakening,” which took place between 1936 and 1941 and “offered new opportunities in employment and education for some Iranian women in exchange for the requirement that all Iranian women abandon their veils in public.”7 Amin points out that the

“woman question” and “Women’s Awakening,” during the first Pahlavi era was not about gender freedom or equality per se but instead was a competition between different patriarchal powers.

On one hand, the “Women’s Awakening” offered new opportunities in employment and education for some Iranian women; however, these reforms and opportunities were employed within a framework of male guardianship and ultimately the patriarchal “protectionist” state. He argues that despite some advances for women, the state’s top-down, elite-based feminist project was not inclusive of all women.8 Amin also addresses western imported “beauty culture” and western (especially American) commodities such as cosmetics, dress, and fashion that were

6 Ibid, 5. 7 Amin, Camron Michael. The Making of the Modern Iranian Woman: Gender, State Policy, and Popular Culture, 1865-1946 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002): 1. 8 Ibid.

28 introduced in Iran at this time as a way to further reshape Iranian women’s roles and senses of identity.9 Similarly, Afsaneh Najmabadi (2005) argues how the consumption of beauty culture in

Iran became more feminized.10 She also explores how “normative concepts [of beauty and fashion] reconfigured [Iranian] women from ‘home’ (manzil) to ‘manager of the house’

(mudabbir-i manzil),”11 as a way to empower women within the domestic space. However, scholars such as Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi (2002) demonstrates as modern houses were constructed and western ideals of womanhood and motherhood were introduced, a new sense of domesticity inhabited domestic spaces. Rostam-Kolayi believes modern house design and the spatial reconfiguration of public and private spaces authorized certain kinds of domestic activities – activities which are gendered – while devalueing others as women’s gender roles rapidly changed during Reza Shah’s era.12 For example, the concepts of “public” and “private” in traditional courtyard houses dictated gender relations and the everyday experiences of women

9 Amin, Camron Michael. “Importing ‘Beauty Culture’ into Iran in the and 1930s: Mass Marketing Individualism in an Age of Anti-Imperialist Sacrifice,” Comparative Studies of , Africa and the Middle East 24, no. 1, (2004): 79-95. Also, as Pamela Karimi points out, “while historians of modern Iranian architecture and archaeology have written about the ways in which public monuments, ancient relics, and archeological remains helped to materialize the sense of national identity and political power, only scant attention has been paid to other seemingly important tangible elements.” Cited in Karimi, Pamela. Op. Cit., 11. 10 Najmabadi, Afsaneh. Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity, (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2005): 377. 11 Najmabadi, Afsaneh. “Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran,” in Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, ed, by Lila Abu-Lughod, (Princeton University Press, 1998): 91. 12 See Rostam-Kolayi, Jasmin “Foreign Education, the Women’s Press, and the Discourse of Scientific Domesticity in Early-Twentieth-Century Iran,” in Iran and the Surrounding World: Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics, eds. by Keddie, Niki.R. and R. Matthee, (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2002): 182-202; also Rostam-Kolayi, Jasamin. “Expanding Agendas for the ‘new’ Iranian Woman: Family Law, Work, and Unveiling.” in The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921-1941, by Stephanie Cronin, (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003): 195. edim Chehabi, H.E. “Expanding Agendas for the ‘new’ Iranian Woman: Family Law, Work, and Unveiling,” P.193. Dehqani, Francis “CMS Women Missionaries in Iran, 1891–1934: Attitudes Towards and Muslim Women,” in Women, Religion, and Culture in Iran, eds. Ansari, Sarah and Vanessa Martin, (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon in association with the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 2002): 27-50.

29 and men within it.13 Modern house in comparison were designed based on a more secular principle.

While this dissertation contributes to this body of literature, it also uncovers what has not been studied yet, specifically, the gender dimensions of Reza Shah’s modernization projects and the effects of the modernization of the built environment on women during this era. For a variety of reasons, an understanding of gender in architecture and spatial analysis has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. Indeed, none of the aforementioned studies address how these reforms were themselves gendered, nor how they held differential gendered (and class, ethnic and economic) effects for women and men of distinct groups. Neither does this literature address the tensions within the new nation-state, or amongst state planners and architects, about this dramatic transition from traditional public and private settings to the modern settings that characterize the “modern moment.” In particular, this dissertation includes an examination of how patriarchal cultures and institutions, which I define below, influence the construction of the build environment. This study offers a fresh and critical perspective on this historical process and fills an important gap in the scholarship on the history of modern Iran, including both in the

Persian (Farsi-) and English-language scholarship.

Besides, these studies each have a significant contribution; however, little has been done to understand the relationship between gender, space and architecture, particularly during the

Reza Shah era when discourses on women’s emancipation were highly visible, controversial, and contested. Interestingly, later scholarship on women’s rights during the Islamic Revolution address women’s rights at length; in contrast, few scholars have attempted to understand at length how the gender-desegregation of space and the forced removal of the veil affected women

13 Khatib-Chahidi, Jane. “Sexual Prohibitions, Shared Space and Fictive Marriages in Shiite Iran,” in Women and Space: Ground Rules and Social Maps, ed. S. Ardener, (London: Croom Helm, 1981): 112- 35.

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(and men) and both positive and negative ways. Many of the historical studies on Iranian architecture and modernization are primarily descriptive; most are not interdisciplinary. The review of the literature illustrates that there is not enough interdisciplinary that theorize the effects of the modernization of the built environment on women, nor how the built environment is gendered in a broader sense. Indeed, interdisciplinary research is still an emerging field or approach in Iran. To address these gaps in the literature, in this dissertation I draw from studies of transnational feminist theory, theories of modernization, theories of gender and nationalism, and theories of gender, space and architecture (in the Middle East and more broadly, including the western feminist literature) to frame and theorize my research findings.

Review of the Interdisciplinary Literature and Theoretical Framework:

Postcolonial and Transnational Feminisms

As mentioned earlier, different groups of Iranian women experienced Reza Shah’s modernization project, particularly his dress reform in public spaces, in various ways. For example, elite middle-class women appreciated the unveiling insofar as it reframed modern dress as fashion and challenged the idea that it was culturally taboo for women to appear in public without a veil. In contrast, some women perceived it as an intervention into their private life. It is not surprising that the state ignored the cultural diversity of women’s experiences across class, ethnic, religious, geographic location, and familial differences, and homogenized them as one group with similar desires.14 In this dissertation, I argue that the homogenization of women (and

14 I have to highlight that Iran is not a homogeneous country, despite the prevalence of western Orientalist representations in homogenizing Iranian culture and society. Iran has a heterogeneous culture including diverse ethnic groups, social classes, as well as various ruling states that it encompasses. Iran went through distinct processes of modernization in different historical periods, including during the Qajar dynasty in the 19th century, the two Pahlavi eras in the , and the Islamic revolution in contemporary Iran in the late 20th and 21st centuries. If anything, what can be considered temporally

31 citizens) as one universal group with similar needs and desires, and with presumably the same goals and understandings of emancipation and freedom through modern practices, is problematic. To make this argument, I introduce my transnational feminist conceptual framework as an alternative to earlier studies of women’s emancipation and modernization in

Iran.

Gender-based postcolonial and transnational approaches to the study of the built environment stem from earlier feminist theories of gender and modernization. Well-known feminist scholars such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1984) and Inderpal Grewal and Caren

Kaplan (1994) helped develop postcolonial and transnational feminist theory through their critiques of modernity and modernization.15 Among others, they work to destabilize western assumptions of non-western and/or “Third World” women as facing the same types of oppression as western women. Mohanty argues:

the relationship between ‘Woman’—a cultural and ideological composite Other constructed through diverse representational discourses (scientific, literary, juridical, linguistic, cinematic, etc.)—and ‘women’—real, material subjects of their collective histories—is one of the central questions the practice of feminist scholarship seeks to address. This connection between women as historical subjectivities and the representation of Woman produced by hegemonic discourses is not a relation of direct identity or a relation of correspondence or simple implication.16

continuous are these dramatically distinct and vast modernization projects over time. Even the two Pahlavi kings (Reza Shah, the father, and Mohammad Reza Shah, the son) did not forward their modernization goals in similar ways. Building on transnational feminist theoretical arguments about contextualizing cultural variation across time and space, this dissertation adds another dimension (time) to investigations of architecture, place and space. 15 Grewal, Inderpal and Caren Kaplan, Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); and Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses.” Boundary 2 (Duke University Press, 12/13 (3), 1984): 333-58. 16 Ibid, 334.

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In other words, the homogenization and systematization of women as real, material subjects is problematic particularly when one is using the referent “Woman” as signifying a universal group defined exclusively in terms of a western ideal and not through an intersectional lens that takes into account their social class, ethnicity, culture, and geopolitical location.

Moreover, Mohanty emphasizes the diversity of women’s experiences and the importance of contextualizing them. She critiques western feminist (and other) scholars who interpret and write about “other” cultures without incorporating information about a particular historical context and the cultural differences within it. She believes this method of narration should be taken into consideration more carefully; if not, then it can create a dynamic where western cultures and ideologies function and are reproduced as the norm. Taking these ideas into account, in the context of this dissertation I utilize a transnational feminist lens to contextualize gender and women’s experiences in the built environment, in both public or private spaces, and avoid generalizations. Historically, generalizations about women’s experiences have led to extremely polarized views on women’s rights, including how space is gendered (segregated or desegregated) and whether women should or should not wear the veil, to give two examples I address in this research. Their experiences may look similar; however, women’s encounters with in Iran depend much upon their social, cultural, religious, and economic backgrounds and on their experiences “bargaining with patriarchy” in their homes, with their husbands and male relatives, and in the streets, with other Iranian citizens and with the state.

Transnational Modernization

In Iran, Reza Shah’s modernization resulted in the adoption of new urban planning, the introduction of modern architecture, and the gender desegregation of public spaces. In terms of

33 urban planning, modernization initiated an automobile-oriented urbanization. In terms of architecture, modernization introduced new forms, construction methods, and building materials.

Modern houses emerged as the preferred housing type in comparison to the traditional courtyard houses. In terms of gender, modernization tended to increase the visibility and mobility of women in public as well as private space. In contrast, traditionalist ideologies at the time worked to contain women within their segregated gender roles and spaces. Different groups of citizens selectively appropriate certain aspects of modernization. In other words, modernization is perceived in contradictory and complex ways by different communities in Iran. Part of the modernization challenge (and moving from one place to another) is that the modern environment might not support the individual’s expectations and lifestyle. However, in the case of courtyard houses, such impact of relocation might not have been as bad as one assumes, and, as this dissertation demonstrates, many residents were happy to move to the modern neighborhood.

Moreover, the tensions between modernization and traditionalism opened up a space for negotiation (acceptance and resistance). Modernization is typically associated with development, progress, foreign investment, capitalism, westernization and secularization. In contrast, traditionalism is typically associated with local culture, religion, and customs As I demonstrate throughout the remainder of this dissertation, tensions concerning spatial and physical values are constantly at play in Iran’s modernization process.

There is a distinct difference between the term “modernity” and “modernization” and their employment in scholarship. In classic western scholarship, modernity is generally understood as a binary division between pre-modern (“traditional”) and modern conditions.17 In classic theories of modernity, tradition is typically viewed to be an obstacle to progress and

17 See for example Karl Marx (1958) and Max Weber (1905). See also Lerner, D. The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East, (New York: Glencoe, 1964).

34 therefore modernity presumably requires an inevitable break or rupture with the past. These studies consider modernity as a universal and inevitable process of transformation that largely change the world through industrialization, urbanization, and secularization.18 Modernization includes but is not limited to scientific development and advances, technological rationalization, and economic growth. On the other hand, modernization is understood as a linear, teleological process in which nations transition from “traditional” cultures to “modern” societies, with modern states and institutions. In this view, modernization is generalized as a universal tendency desired by all.

Not surprisingly, this universal, over-simplified definition ignores the diverse ways in which people contribute to and are involved in so-called modernization processes. This definition pre-assumes modernization as a neutral process. In response to this linear and superficial definition, Arjun Appadurai (1996) argues that, especially in non-western circumstances, this definition of modernization and its global policy trend is problematic. He characterizes this problematic approach as a “teleological theory, with a recipe for how modernization will universally yield rationality, punctuality, democracy, the free market, and a higher gross national product.”19 He continues, “We cannot simplify matters by imagining that the global is to space what the modern is to time.”20 As Appadurai illustrates modernization cannot be explained as a dramatic and unparalleled break between past and present, what he calls the “modern moment.” Appadurai proposes the term “comparative modernizations” and asserts

18 See Eisenstadt, S. (Ed.). Multiple Modernities. (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2002); Eisenstadt, 2002 and 2003; Taylor, C. Modern Social Imaginaries. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004); and Smith, C. “On Multiple Modernities: Shifting the Modernity Paradigm.” unpublished paper, (University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, 2006). The latter cited in Nazgol Bagheri, “Modernizing the Public Space: Gender Identities, Multiple Modernities, and Space Politics in Tehran.” (ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2013): 38. 19 Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996): 9 20 Ibid.

35 that theories cannot be globalized and universal.21 He argues no single theory can describe modernity’s complexity and ambiguity particularly as it is experienced differently over space and throughout time. He also demonstrates that societies are much more anarchical than the theories about them. This allows us to think in a more nuanced way about capitalist (top-down) vs. socialist (bottom-up) modernization agendas, and about how even a globalized capitalist modernization agenda (such as Reza Shah’s modernization reforms) is necessarily implemented, interpreted, and negotiated in distinct ways depending upon the cultural and geopolitical context.

For example, within the context of Middle East, Sibel Bozdoğan (2001) examines the

Turkish house as space which changes notions of modernity.22 Turkish modernity created a collective imagination of the Turkish identity and Turkish women’s social roles. This practice is different from what Farha Ghannam (2002) explains as the forced relocation of residents from the lower-class neighborhood of Bulaq to a “modernized” housing project, al-.23

Ghannam carefully describes the gendered patriarchy and the power that men used to restrict women’s access to public spaces as a result of relocation to the modern neighborhood of al-

Zawiya. Even though both modernization housing practices, in and , were sponsored by their states, the study of Egyptian household, was different from Turkish collective modernity. The relocation of Cairo residents mainly challenged the cultural identities of Cairo in the 20th century, while in contrast in Turkey the modern changes created room for women to socialize. Therefore, the practices of relocation of citizens into modern housing and their

21 For example, even within the Middle East, Iran’s experience of modernization is different from Turkey’s or from Arab countries’ experiences. 22 Bozdoğan, Sibel. Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the early Republic (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2001). 23 Ghannam, Farha. Remaking the Modern: Space, Relocation, and the Politics of Identity in a Global Cairo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). See also Heynen, Hilde and Gulsum Baydar. ed. Negotiating Domesticity: Spatial Productions of Gender in Modern Architecture, (New York: Routledge, 2005).

36 responses to these demands are different from one context to another and need to be analyzed contextually and temporally.

Nationalism and National Identity

The tensions between modernization and traditionalism constantly emerged and evolved from the project of nation-building during Reza Shah era in Iran. In this dissertation, the ideas of nationalism and nation-building are rooted in three primary notions: (1) Becoming “Iranian” as a form of social identity and a social construct based on the imagined national community of modern Iran; (2) “Gendered nationalism,” including how Iran as a country is personified as

“feminine” by the state and elites, and also how citizenship rights and privileges are gendered, leading to inequalities between men and women; and (3) “Nationalizing architecture,” in part through Reza Shah’s rediscovery of ancient Persian architectural elements and Iran’s pre-Islamic past as a way to shape his “modern” nationalist agenda. This ‘ancient or dynastic nationalism’24 was at the center of Reza Shah’s nationalistic symbols in architecture. Thus, architecture and urban planning are physical sites where the state can control the social, political, and economic expression of nationalist movements and shape hegemonic notions of Iran’s “entry” into modernity in part through reclaiming its Persian past while also looking to the West.

Nationalism is generally understood as a process of creating real and/or imagined communities. In his canonical work, Benedict Anderson (2006) defines the nation as “an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.”25 The

24 Reza Shah’s review of the ancient past created a political legitimization for the . He first adopted the family name Pahlavi from a pre-Islamic language. This language has been spoken in Iran by the Parthians, a group some consider to be the “purest” Iranians. 25 In his canonical work, Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson defines the nation as “an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” Anderson, Benedict R.

37 imagined political community typically rests upon an idea of national unity and sense of community and helps define and limits the imaginary boundaries that define a nation.

Nationalism helps to invent and/or produces nations, through a unified sense of collective belonging. As Anne McClintock (1995) states, nations are:

systems of cultural representation whereby people come to imagine a shared experience of identification with an extended community. As such, nations are not simply phantasmagoria of the mind but are historical practices through which social difference is both invented and performed. Nationalism becomes, as a result, radically constitutive of people’s identities through social contests that are frequently violent and always gendered.26 The inherent sovereignty embedded in the imagined community and incorporated by the presence of the state, reveals that nations are produced through social contests. Nationalism thus places a set of expectations and limitations on the conditions of creating communities. This includes what benefits citizens receive from the state or how they can benefit the state.

Moreover, nationalism is tied to the construction of national identities (e.g., “becoming

Iranian”) through modern reforms. Nationalism, in this sense, is a product of modernity and helps forward modernization goals. Deniz Kandiyoti (1991) states that national communities are often invested in “a modern project that melts and transforms traditional attachments in favor of new identities and as a reflection of authentic cultural values culled from the depths of a presumed communal past.”27 In other words, in modern practices, the structures of racial, ethnic, and class diversity that constitute a nation, are reframed and/or remain invisible as a way to

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. (Rev. ed. New York; London; Verso, 2006): 6. 26 McClintock, Anne. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Context, (New York: Routledge. 1995): 353. 27 Kandiyoti, Deniz. “Identity and Its Discontents: Women and the Nation.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 20:3 (1991): 431. See also her discussion on patriarchy: Kandiyoti, Deniz. “Bargaining with Patriarchy.” Gender and Society 2, no. 3 (1988): 274-290.

38 create a homogeneous national community that identifies itself as similar and as part of a shared set of practices.

Within feminist studies, nationalism is understood as a fundamentally gendered process and set of ideas. McClintock, for example, argues that “all nationalisms are gendered, all are invented, and all are dangerous – dangerous … in the sense that they represent relations to political power and to the technologies of violence.”28 She continues:

no nation in the world gives women and men the same access to the rights and resources of the nation-state. Rather than expressing the flowering into a time of the organic essence of a timeless people, nations are contested systems of cultural representation that limit and legitimize peoples’ access to the resources of the nation-state.29 Generally, the top-down decision-making of modern nation-states make it difficult to prioritize the demands of local people and women. In addition, nationalist ideas about women’s emancipation are almost always framed in a maternalist discourse of motherhood and/or womanhood. In this scenario, women are viewed as mothers of families and mothers of the nation.

Nationalism is also gendered in the sense that women’s emancipation is often considered an important aspect of national progress: “Women’s liberation [is often] credited entirely to national liberation and it [is] only with nationalism that women enter into history.”30 The new

Iranian nation-state during Reza Shah era considered “female emancipation” an important aspect of modern unity and emancipation, what McClintock calls “a powerful political symbol describing at once a separation from the past, the aspirations of an activist present, and the utopia

28 McClintock, Anne. Op. Cit., 352. 29 Ibid, 353. 30 Ibid, 367.

39 of an imagined national future.”31 Likewise, femininity serves nationalist struggles and provides those struggles with powerful feminine symbols and an emancipatory vision of the imagined future. Nations are often portrayed as female characters that (re)produce nations and are simultaneously in need of protection.

The production of communal spaces through architectural design and construction also work to build a sense of nation and create national unity. Nationalist architecture characterizes and represents a kind of political stability, national unity, and social justice. For example, Sibel

Bozdogan describes modernist architecture in Turkey as a political tool which aimed to inspire the national unity and political stability of the Turkish nation.32 Similarly in Iran, Reza Shah supported nationalist architecture and urbanism33 as a way to represent his power as a leader of modern progress.

Gender, Space, and Architecture

During the Reza Shah era, architecture and urban planning clearly served as tools of progress and promoted a sense of unity and national identity. Reza Shah altered many private spaces, changing them into outward, more open public spaces with modern house design. In essence, mimicking building types from the west was his solution, primarily because most of these new designs demanded building types that had no historical precedent to draw upon within

Iran. The more secular character of modern housing types and public and private spaces stood in

31 Heng, Geraldine. “‘A Great Way to Fly’: Nationalism, the State, and the Varieties of Third-World Feminism.” In Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures, eds. M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, 30-45. (New York: Routledge. 1997): 31. 32 Bozdoğan, Sibel. Op. Cit. 33 Grigor, Talinn. Building Iran: Modernism, Architecture, and National Heritage under the Pahlavi Monarchs. (New York: Periscope Publishing, Ltd., 2009).

40 contrast to their traditional counterparts in many ways. The construction of modern buildings and spaces redefined the nature of cities and gender relations within them.

As feminist scholars of architecture and urban planning have pointed out, space is always gendered. Generally, space can be considered gendered in at least two general ways: (1) in terms of women’s and men’s accessibility to space; and (2) in terms of the activities that take place in a given space. In other words, space includes a physical setting that operates to either include or exclude gendered access and/or identities. Some spaces are accessible to men but not women, and vice versa. This is controlled and surveilled on many levels, including through individuals’ forms of self-surveillance. In addition, space is inherently gendered by the nature of the activities that it contains and how it is perceived by people through a gendered lens. For example, library rooms in houses in and England are traditionally considered masculine/male spaces and boudoir are understood as female/feminine spaces. Importantly, spaces that are “masculine” are typically perceived as spaces of rationality, development, public-oriented (even in a house), and in the realm of knowledge production and/or politics, whereas “feminine” spaces are typically perceived as spaces of irrationality, emotion, private/domestic-oriented, and often as marginal and/or as less significant. Given this, feminist scholars argue that gender should always be taken into account in critical analyses of space,34 including by examining relationships among gender, space, power, and status35 and/or by examining often-naturalized gender binaries of feminine/masculine are manifest and give meaning to spaces.

There is a vast body of scholarly contributions by feminist, urban, and architectural historians that in one way or another challenge the traditional binary views on gender which inherently link masculinity to rationality, progress, development, and politics, while linking

34 Massey, Doreen B. Space, Place, and Gender, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994). 35 Spain, Daphne. Gendered Spaces (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992).

41 femininity to irrationality, a static sense of time, the private realm of the family, and nostalgia.

Contributions by Dolores Hayden, (1981); Daphne Spain, (1992); Doreen B. Massey, (1994);

Leslie Weisman, (1994); and Alice T. Friedman, (1998) are notable scholars in this field.36 These and other scholarly works question the dichotomies of gender and space and argue that regardless of the spatial setting or physical space, it is important to reveal the relations between gender and space. In terms of spatial setting, these scholars demonstrate that space is the product of social relations and therefore spatiality is socially constructed (given that gender relations are socially constructed within a space). In addition, buildings are both the medium and the outcome of social relations. On one hand, space creates, directs, and limits various activities and social relations, and on the other hand, space is shaped through social activities and relations. To examine if a physical space is gendered, these scholars investigate various factors such as the location and size of the rooms; the design styles and forms of spaces; the materials, views, and access to the rooms; as well as typologies and functions of space (rooms/buildings). Moreover, the binaries between public and private spaces, which are themselves gendered, often create a separation between genders. Public spaces are typically identified as masculine spaces where rational decision-making takes place, primarily amongst men, who are viewed as a full citizen and typically hold full citizen rights, unlike women. In contrast, private spaces are characterized as feminine spaces of domesticity and seduction, and as such those who occupy this space are not capable of rational decision-making and are not deemed worthy of full citizen rights.

36 See Hayden, Dolores. The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Design for American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981); Spain, Daphne. Op. Cit; Massey, Doreen B. Space, Place, and Gender, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); Weisman, Leslie. Discrimination by Design: A Feminist Critique of the Man-made Environment, (Illini Books ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994); and Friedman, Alice T. Introduction in Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History, (New York: Abrams, 1998).

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Furthermore, it is important to reveal the ways in which the profession of architecture and urban planning, as a masculinist discourse, perpetuates gender segregation and spatially, economically, and socially marginalizes women and other minoritized groups. For example, on one hand, the suburbanization of housing, based on a clear-cut gender division of labor, relegated women’s role in society to the private realm, through their further segregation into the private household from the public realm of production, and in assigning housewife roles, or roles in social reproduction, to them.37 At the same time, the professions of architecture and urban planning were themselves historically male-dominated. Masculinist views and approaches to design resulted in a creation of a “man-made” built environment.38 Although one cannot perceive the design process as a linear process and cannot consider the role of users in a passive way, historically women have been perceived primarily to have a minor role in design decisions and have been excluded or discouraged from contributing to the construction of the built environment. Mostly they have been viewed as passive consumers of the built environment, rather than as producers of it. In Europe and the United States, it was not until the emergence of modern architecture that a number of female clients contributed to modern housing design and became primary advocates for private home architecture.39

On the Origins of Domestic Design and Domesticity

An understanding of house design and domestic space cannot be separated from a broader cultural analysis of modernization. For starters, any culture consists of a set of norms and behaviors that are translated and embedded in the spatial built form. For example, Amos

37 Betty Friedan makes a similar argument about the 1950s housewife in the United States in her influential book. See Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997). 38 Weisman, Leslie. Discrimination by Design: A Feminist Critique of the Man-made Environment, (Illini Books ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994): 10. 39 Friedman, Alice T. Op. Cit.

43

Rapoport (1969) defines the house as an “institution, not just a structure created for a complex set of purposes. Because building a house is a cultural phenomenon, its form and organization are greatly influenced by the cultural milieu in which it belongs.”40 In other words, the architecture of the house is not simply a physical structure, but rather an institution and cultural phenomena grounded in space.41 In addition, the house and its domestic spaces are the most immediate and primary architectural settings for practicing social relations. The dynamics of negotiation within the household through daily practices show the complexities of broader social relations. In other words, domestic spaces are settings through which social relationships and cultural negotiation are being produced on a daily basis.

Moreover, domestic spaces further facilitate the strengthening of cultural norms, including norms about gender roles and relations. As Anne McClintock (1995) points out, the etymology of domesticity itself implies a kind of domestication through domination: “the verb

‘to domesticate’ is akin to dominate, which derives from dominus, lord of the domum, the home.”42 Similarly, Dörte Kuhlmann (2013), an architecture scholar, describes domesticity as:

both the Greek domos and the Latin domus are derived from the Sanskrit damah, meaning ‘house’ and ‘home’, but damah also meant ‘to tame’, ‘control’ or ‘discipline’. The damunah, the ‘head of the household’, was linguistically related to damayati, which means ‘to subordinate’, ‘overpower’ or ‘control’. In that sense, the house was not only a place of safety, but also the place where creatures such as domestic animals, but also people, that is, slaves, women and children, were tamed and supervised.43

40 Rapoport, Amos. House Form and Culture (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1969): 46. 41 Rapoport, Amos. “Culture and Built Form – A Reconsideration,” In Architecture in Cultural Change: Essays in Built Form and Culture Research, ed. D.G.Saile (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1986): 162. 42 McClintock, Anne. Op. Cit., 35. 43 Kuhlmann, Dörte. Gender Studies in Architecture: Space, Power and Difference, (New York: Routledge, 2013): 114.

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Ultimately, even the language used for domesticity encapsulates the idea that spaces enable social relations, cultural attitudes, gender divisions, and can define gender roles within their spaces. Thus, it is crucial to identify the extent to which the architecture of house design, whether traditional or modern, has been impacted by and has an influence on the construction of a broader patriarchal culture and set of patriarchal institutions, including on how gender roles are constructed, understood and enacted in one’s culture.

Whether the culture is patriarchal, traditional, and/or religious, historically, a common approach to the relationship between gender and house design makes reference to the separation between men and women. House as a private entity was “used as an instrument of power”44 and has been interpreted as the first setting in which gendered hierarchies and power relations have been constructed. The architecture and spaces of the house (designated a feminine space) assist with and signify the construction of patriarchal ideology and control over women’s bodies, sexualities, and identities; “the house is literally understood as a mechanism for the domestication of (delicately minded and pathologically embodied) women.”45 This culture of patriarchy considers women to be incapable of controlling themselves and therefore they must be limited and surrounded. This claim expands and draws on studies which argue that subordinated femininity is produced historically in the discourse of honor, which has relied heavily on the

“Law of the Father.”46 Mark Wigley (1992), for example, asserts that a normative notion of the feminine is constructed through the patriarchal-ordered division of space. Consequently, gender relations within domestic spaces help produce and also reflect broader power relations between

44 Ibid. 45 Wigley, Mark. “Untitled: The Housing of Gender,” In Sexuality & Space, ed. Beatriz Colomina, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Papers on Architecture, 1992): 332. 46 Ibid, 358.

45 men and women; in addition, they help give meaning to masculine and feminine identities in the house and broader society.

Importantly, seen through the conceptual lens of gender and domestic space, the house was can be viewed as a type of architecture that encloses and conceals heterosexual relations, thus further provided a setting for patriarchal, heteronormative control over women’s sexuality.

In this manner, “marriage […] is instituted to effect this control. As the mechanism of, rather than simply the scene for, this control, the house is involved in the production of the gender division it appears to secure.”47 Through marriage responsibilities, social and biological reproductive activities and assigning of separate spaces to women and men, the masculinist architecture of houses further naturalizes a traditional understanding of heterosexuality as the norm. As part of this framing, houses have been assumed to be a place of pleasure and leisure for men, and places of labor (wifehood, motherhood responsibilities, and additional social- reproductive activities) for women.

This naturalized sexual division of labor within the institution of the family, which exists in Iran as well as the west, not only essentializes gender roles and heteronormativity but also allows for men to view themselves as the patriarchal heads of household and as fit to take their place in the masculine public sphere of work and political participation, whereas women are relegated to the feminized private realm of the home. As Dolores Hayden says, “the home was not considered a workplace but a retreat [for men]; the housewife’s unpaid, isolated labor was still not considered work but consumption.”48 In response to this history of house design, feminist architects and planners in 19th and 20th-century United States began to design domestic

47 Ibid, 336. 48 Hayden, Dolores. The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Design for American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981): 26.

46 spaces that deconstructed and rearticulated these essentialist gender roles stereotypes.49 Material feminists are among the first who criticized the feminization of household occupation and gender roles in industrial society and attempted to socialize housework. They suggested how changes in the design of domestic spaces can move forward the goal to create economic independence and social equality for women. The proposed community services, kitchen-less houses, and public kitchens as a way to alter the domestic roles of women, and to overcome conflicts such as gender, class, and race in their society.

Moreover, such dialectic division of gender and therefore separation between private and public spaces constructed even greater gender binaries. Such spatial division authorizes certain events while neglecting others. Given that, these spaces can be considered as a setting for gender representation. This argument is informed by Judith Butler’s conception of gender, which proposes that gender is produced through the reiteration of acts promoted by discursive forces.50

In this case, women’s “performativity” within the spaces of the house reveals the material aspects of the domestic space as an extension of a woman’s feminine representation and gender identity. Therefore, houses and their domestic spaces are not neutral containers of performances; rather, they are active settings which are responsive to social norms and individual’s identity.

Besides, various physical and non-physical architecture elements (such as doors, windows, balconies, and walls), and/or cultural respectability and etiquette can be considered as discourses that reinforce and maintain gender norms. In other words, through the physical boundaries and divisions, houses may direct, influence, and reinforce women’s performances.

For example, architecture elements can constitute a pattern of movement to formulate, sustain,

49 Hayden specifically discusses the time period between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the Great Depression. See Ibid. 50 Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, (New York: Routledge, 2006).

47 and strengthen gender norms and traditions. Therefore, it is crucial to consider both the capability of the house and its organization (spatial configuration and architecture elements) in producing certain cultural norms. Cultural norms, on the other hand, construct gender roles and gender performances.

Mark Wigley compares human bodies and buildings as “the body was increasingly subjected to the very same regimes of hygiene, order, discipline, and prohibition as buildings.”51

He points out how spatial boundaries regulate and discipline the female body since the primary role of the house and its architecture was:

to protect the father’s genealogical claims by isolating women from other men. Reproduction is understood as a reproduction of the father. The law of the house is undoubtedly no more than the law of the father. The physical house is the possibility of the patriarchal order that appears to be applied to it.52 Accordingly, social and physical boundaries act as a medium to create and maintain inequalities and marginalization, which will then specify men’s social status within society superior to women.53 Therefore, spaces such as dwellings and houses provide shelter, comfort, and security from the world outside; however, they are also the most immediate physical structures and spaces in which movements, activities, and behaviors of occupants are potentially controlled or surveilled. The house form inhabits physical attitudes, reflects the social milieu, and constructs cultural traditions, that both confirm and confront the world beyond. In addition, houses play a pivotal role in including or excluding certain groups. The inclusivity and exclusivity of these spaces depend on factors such as who holds the power in the family or household – in this case, patriarchal power - and how negotiations take place with the family. Be it explicit or implicit, the

51 Wigley, Mark. Op. Cit., 358. 52 Ibid, 336. 53 Weisman, Leslie Kanes in Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, ed. by Jane Rendell, Barbara Penner and Iain Borden, (New York, Routledge: The Architext series, 2000): 2.

48 organization and design of space serve to structure interactions and can subordinate the actions and mobility of one group (e.g., women as wives, mothers and/or daughters) over another (e.g. male heads of household).

Moreover, in examining the idea of domesticity and gender roles in relation to traditional and modern spaces, this study draws on the fact that the gender performance played a pivotal role in strengthening gender roles and cultural norms. Since, within the discourse of the modernization of the built environment in Iran, Reza Shah attempted to deconstruct the order of gender performances. In other words, Reza Shah exoticizes the female body as simultaneously strange and docile bodies in traditional spaces. He promoted the construction of homogenous modern bodies through monolithic modern performatively (western clothing and beauty standards). This rendered Iranian women’s bodies as an incomplete and imperfect. For example, the bourgeoisie elite bodies welcomed the state ideas and became mimic bodies of western cultures.54 These elite women tried to mimic modernization beauty and fashion standards and perform western modernity. This further created hierarchical bodies in terms of the social class within the society of Iran. The link between modernization and performativity, during Reza

Shah, most strongly reinforced at the loci of classification and homogenization and prevented the nation to forge its own unique culture.

The modern performance also disciplined and appropriated Iranian women bodies as

“Other” in a power relation system between east and west. Under the surveillance of the state, the intent was to discipline a performance and to imitate the body language, clothing, beauty, and fashion of the western subject.55 In this particular mimicry performance, the panopticon politics

54 Fanon, Frantz. “On National Culture,” in The Wretched of the Earth, translated by Constance Farrington (New York: Grove Press, 1963): 206-248. 55 Bhabha, Homi. “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse,” in The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994): 85.

49 of vision are particularly relevant (both as social behavior and as a spatial condition).56 The

Panopticon serves as a model of disciplinary society that operates on a system of control and surveillance to control individuals. Particularly with the modernization of urban spaces and the

Unveiling Act of 1936, power and surveillance have been exercised over women, their gender roles, their performances, and their bodies in both public and private spaces.57 In other words, by controlling women’s social relations (as a result of their performativity), Reza Shah homogenized and exercised power over women bodies. I will explain these concepts throughout the dissertation.

56 Foucault, Michel. “Panopticism,” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, translated by Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1995): 199. 57 One can argue that women’s bodies are also under surveillance in courtyard houses as in them, the women’s quarter, andaruni, is separate physically and visually from the men’s quarter, biruni.

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Chapter Two: A Country in Transition: Modernizing Space, Gender, and Nation

Introduction: Architecture and urban studies scholars consider public spaces to be communal social spaces that are open and (hopefully) accessible to various people.1 They identify public spaces as operating at the intersection of the built environment and social relations, and as reflecting the multiplicity, hierarchies, and power relations in societies. Scholars such as Dörte Kuhlmann

(2013) argue that public spaces are shaped by and help constitute gender (and other social) relations: “[Public] space, the fundamental aspect of material culture, is [...] of central importance in constituting gender. It determines how men and women are brought together or kept apart; it participates in defining a sexual division of labour; its organization produces, reproduces, and represents notions about sexuality and the body.”2 Moreover, public spaces

“both reflect and affect the ways in which gender is constructed and understood.”3 In early 20th- century Iran, whereas men had relative freedom and were less restricted in their access to various public spaces, women’s movement and mobility, in contrast, was structured by dress codes, patriarchal power, and cultural taboos. Since public spaces were considered an important marker in the nationalist representation of Iran during Reza Shah Pahlavi, many urban and civic changes took place during this period as a way to shape Iran’s modernized national identity.

Moreover, gender became central to architects’ and planners’ ideas about reshaping public spaces in Iran. The state, modernist architects, and the press all contributed to shaping and

1 See Habermas, Jürgen The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. (Massachusetts: MIT Press: 1991); Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City. (Cambridge MA: MIT Press: 1960); Lefebvre, Henri. The production of space. (Oxford, Blackwell: 1974); and Jan, Gehl. Life Between Buildings; Using Public Spaces. Translated by Jo Koch (Washington: Island Press: 2002). 2 Kuhlmann, Dörte. Gender Studies in Architecture: Space, Power and Difference, (New York: Routledge, 2013): 5. 3 Massey, Doreen B. Space, Place, and Gender, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994): 179

51 reshaping the construction and representation of modern Iran, particularly as these ideas circulated through the media and were embedded in the built environment.

This chapter examines the relationship between Reza Shah state’s nationalist principles, modernist architects and urban planner reforms, and the gender desegregation of public spaces.

The chapter also focuses on the development of the profession of architecture and recognizes the role European-trained Iranian architects and urban planners played in shaping the modernization narratives in Iran. Moreover, as the first Pahlavi state proposed the historical visibility of Iranian women’s active cultural and social participation in modern national formations, therefore, this chapter explains the ways in which the construction of these modern nationalist discourse shaped the subjectivity of Iranian women and influenced the history of women’s emancipation in early twentieth-century Iran. The chapter illustrates how these influences were intertwined with the history of patriarchal normative ideas of femininity and masculinity (and gender roles) in Iran.

In a nutshell, this chapter asks as the first Pahlavi state “unveiled” its western-style modernization in Iran, how did European-trained modern Iranian architects and urban planners redesign and refashion Iranian urban spaces and how did their practice differ from those commissioned by Reza Shah’s state? Also, in what ways, did women (and men) experience collective social emancipation, face persistent or new inequalities? Besides, for women who did not want to be seen in the public domain without their veil, what consequences did they face and how did the architecture of the built environment facilitate their access or prevent their mobility?

Iran as an “Imagined Community,” Nationalism, and National Representation

When Reza Shah came to power in 1942, Iran had suffered from fragmentation of the country in the aftermath of World War I. Despite the fact that Iran was a diverse country, and

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Iranians had no monolithic identity and no single, unifying culture and language, Reza Shah aimed to create a modern nation-state in Iran. His goal was to free Iran from “clerical influence, nomadic uprisings, and ethnic differences”4 and to restore and unit Iran through modernization reforms. The state aimed to create technological progress, generate economic development, change social norms, and initiate women’s emancipation. Reza Shah’s main goal was to turn Iran into a modern country with a unified nation. He forwarded this agenda based on his own perception and definition of nationalism, modernity, and progress.

Reza Shah’s carried out his notion of national modernity by promoting the historical and shared roots of the diverse Iranian ethnicities and tribal groups. The state used an ethnic homogeneity to forge a national unity through the legacy of ancient Persia (Iran) and its well- known pre-Islamic history of the great Cyrus and the Achaemenian , a pre-Islamic period, more than 2,000 years before Reza Shah’s rule. The state’s nationalism clearly neglected all connections with the Islamic tradition of Iran metaphorically and physically. Amin Banani demonstrates:

The ideas underlying the changes that took place in Iran from 1921 to 1941 were threefold: a complete dedication to the cult of nationalism-statism; a desire to assert this nationalism by a rapid adoption of the material advances of the West; and a breakdown of the traditional power of religion and a growing tendency toward secularism, which came as a result of the first two ideas.5 For Reza Shah, religion represented a force that prevented progress. Equating religion with backwardness, he actively sought to undermine religion and replace it with a secular

4 Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1982): 140. 5 Banani, Amin. The Modernization of Iran, 1921-1941 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961): 45.

53 nationalism.6 For example, he replaced the by the old Persian-Zoroastrian solar calendar. He also ordered to change the names of various towns and cities to honor pre-Islamic

Persian kings, mythological heroes and famous poets.

Reza Shah and his state had control over press and publications. Through this medium and propaganda campaigns, the state channeled to educate the population about its ideas and beliefs on nationalism.7 For example, in an article in Etellaat magazine titled “Homeland is a

Large House that Belongs to a Nation,” the author compared structure, design, and memories of a homeland to a house.8 He stated homeland is comparable to a house as they both have similar characteristics. He described the house as the inheritance of individual’s ancestors where people create happy and sad memories; memories which become part of one’s identity. The author characterizes that every feature of the house such as the bricks, walls, doors, windows, spaces, plants and flowers, and even the sky above it, are all parts of the memory of a place. He expressed one’s relationship to the homeland as patriotisms with devoutness and further emphasized on the essentiality of zealous so that a nation can move toward development and progress. He emphasized, the importance of teaching these characteristics and meanings to the younger generations of Iran.

In another article, Mirza Mohammad Alikhan Foroughi, Iran’s representative to the

United Nations (UN), gave a speech to Iranian youth who were studying in Paris at the time.9

Foroughi addressed the convergences and divergences between nationalism and internationalism

6 Marefat, Mina. “Building to Power: Architecture of Tehran 1921-1941” (PhD Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988): 71. 7 During this period, the state had control over press and publications. 8 “Mihan khane bozorgi ast ke motealegh b yek mellat ast” (Homeland is a large house that belongs to a nation), in Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, Khordad 1318/ May 1939, p.374. Similar argument has made by Mohammad Hejazi, in Iran-e Emruz (Today’s Iran), titled “Ancient Land, New Country.” See Iran-e Emruz (Today’s Iran), Moradar 1318/ August 1939, p.39. 9 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, Khordad 1309/ May 1930, p.157.

54 and declared that “nationalism in other countries is not what we [Iranians] define as [a positive] shared patriotic feelings toward our country and against dictatorship, instead [for western countries] nationalism means egocentrism, a collective societal egocentrism where a nation perceives itself as more elevated than other nations, [while for eastern countries] internationalism as opposed to nationalism is the rejection of races, ethnicities, and nations [and has positive connotations].”10 Foroughi distanced “Iranian nationalism” from “other [western] nationalisms” and stressed implicitly that there are positive and negative types of nationalism: one that is productive and helps the construction of a unified nation (e.g., the Iranian model) and another which is destructive and creates hierarchies among nations (e.g., western models). In his speech,

Foroughi pointed out to a “positive nationalism” as crucial for the development of the nation and stated that internationalism also benefits nations. He based his definitions and opinion on what he believed the UN defined as positive nationalism and internationalism. Foroughi mentioned that neither nationalism nor internationalism (in regard to the UN definition) could be exclusively identified as sound policies for the world, particularly when nations coopted radical nationalism for their own sake.

Through these and many similar articles, Reza Shah’s state had always tied nationalism to modernization in this period, particularly as the representation of Iran as the modern nation- state was one of its main objectives. For example, Reza Shah banned photography of old districts in the cities as a way to end the representation of Iran as an orientalist “backward” country.11 The state mainly concerned about the Orientalist representation of Iran by western travelers who previously described Iran as a primitive and backward country. This was evident in different articles written in state’s magazines. For example, in an article in Ettelaat newspaper titled “The

10 Ibid. 11 Banani, Amin. Op. Cit., 41-42.

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Deceptive Information of Europeans on Iran,”12 an Iranian author, resided in Paris at the time, suggested the state needs to improve tourism industry and attract western tourists. He believed that the tourism industry brings capital to Iran and helps represent a new modern Iran to the world. The author declared that many people in the west perceived Iran as a backward country due to previous stereotyped writings and memoirs by European travelers. He complained that this hegemonic European tradition in describing other nations as backward have created a one- sided biased superficial representation of Iran and perpetuated further stereotypes about Iran and

Iranian culture. These statements allowed the state to consume modernization in order to construct a national identity for its global audiences. Particularly the nationalist modern propaganda and modernization of public spaces perceived as the best platforms for the representation of Iran as a modern nation-state in the world gaze.

The state nationalist modern propaganda was quite successful on modifying of the representation of Iran for global audiences. Within a four-year period, another article published in the Ettelaat newspaper called “An Observation of a European Traveler on Iran.” In it, a

European traveler explained an example of the urban development in Iran as:

Tehran is like a factory. All the alleys are destroyed. Wherever you look, you see construction materials. The steel structure of the buildings is evident wherever you turn your head. In all areas of the city, old buildings are torn down and new buildings with cement, steel, and Iron beam are erected instead. Construction is everywhere, and all cities of Iran are becoming bigger and taller. Even though there are still horse wagons (Wagon Asbi) as the main source of transportation, there are latest automobiles as well … Every day Iran is going toward modernization and mechanical world.13

12 Masoudi, A. Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, Khordad 1309/ June 1930, p.166. 13 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, 1313/ 1934, p.241.

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The European traveler very clearly pictured the physical urban transformation of Iran toward development and progress. The state published and acknowledged these recognitions and observations of modern Iran in official newspapers as a new representation of national progress.

Not an unusual story, Reza Shah shared his development objectives and guidelines for the implementation of his inventory projects of modernization and nationalism simultaneously.

However, the state’s paradoxical view on progress “one face gazing back into the primordial mists of the past, the other into an infinite future,”14 created oxymora relationship between modernization and national identity formation during this period. On one hand, because of the ethnic diversity and cultural heterogeneity of the Iranian population, the state imagined a future nation and looked to the “modern” west for its imitations, conceptions, and designs. On the other hand, its construction of a nation-state went together with a new national identity, which sought its roots in the ancient culture of Persia, going all the way back to the Achaemenian Empire.

In many ways, a cartoon illustration in Setareh-e Sobh (The Morning Star), is a rare illustration that sums up the ideas and perceptions of nationalist modernization by the state and many elite Iranians (Figure 1.2). The cartoon compared two illustrations; the one on top reads as

“An Example of Today’s World Civilization!” and the one on the bottom reads as “An Example of our (Iran) Today’s Civilization!” The upper cartoon illustrates a modern developed country with all kinds of transportation including trains (railroad), airplanes, automobiles, and ships. The smoke of factories in the back shows that the country advanced in industrial ways. Even with the smoke in the sky, the sun is happy and shines. Electric wires represent electricity expanding throughout the entire country and citizens are seen benefitting from these developments. In comparison, in the bottom illustration, Iran is portrayed as an undeveloped country in which people still ride on donkeys and horses. The country lacks electricity and people still carry

14 McClintock cites Tom Nairn. See McClintock, Anne. Op. Cit., 358.

57 lanterns. The untouched mountain blocks in the background demonstrate that the country lacks modern factories and still has an untouched landscape. The lack of perspective in the illustration of Iran signifies the country’s lack of modern expansion and one-dimensional development.

Even the sun is not happy in Iran as it makes a sad face as it looks at citizens.

Fig 1.2: A cartoon in Setareh-e Sobh (The Morning Star). © MEDOC, University of Chicago.

Although the cartoon seems as a companion between “undeveloped” traditional Iran and

“developed” modern west, it is gendered in many ways. In both illustrations, countries are personified as females (see the left side). The western country is portrayed as a woman with blond hair and a beautiful, young face. She proudly gazes at her modernization success and feels confident and calm about her development. In comparison, Iran is rendered as an old woman with dark black hair. Iran gazes down at her failures and traditionalism. Her sad face, full of

58 winkles, reflects her suffering from her situation. Moreover, both illustrations symbolize public spaces and urban areas as masculine. The lack of any female individual in these spaces implies that women belong to the private spaces of the house and need to remain in their private domestic roles. This form of feminization of Iran as a country and lack of female figures in the illustration further epitomizes how the Iranian homeland (and other homelands) are gendered and comprised unequal spaces of mobility and access for citizens’ (gender) rights.

The Debates on Urban Changes and National Reforms

Reza Shah’s model of national modernity primarily expressed itself through a new concept of urbanism. Before modernization, many cities in Iran were primarily a private inward oriented city. They had an organic urban fabric15 and were mainly surrounded by defensive walls. Access to and from the city was limited and was only possible through gates.16 The gates served as taxation as well as control points.17 The walls and gates also represented introvert beliefs of privacy and veiling of traditional urbanism in Iran. Soon after being in power, Reza

Shah ordered to destroy cities’ walls and gates. He perceived these defensive elements as unnecessary because he subjugated tribal groups and no internal danger threats the cities. Also, since he aimed to unite the country, the cities needed to open their doors and communicate with each other. The state then put forward a large-scale national urban planning and a large-scale

15 The organic urban fabric is those pre-modern urban spaces involved organic growth patterns that were primarily narrow and twisted. They were mostly designed for pedestrians and some but not all structures were roofed. 16 During the 1870s, due to the growth of the city and the need for its expansion, the existing walls were demolished. New city walls in the form of an octagon with 12 gates were built. The new octagonal shape of the city was modeled after the plan of old Paris. See Mashayekhi, Azadeh. “Tehran, the Scene of Modernity in the Pahlavi Dynasty: Modernisation and Urbanisation Processes 1925–1979” in Urban Change in Iran, ed. Arefian, Fatemeh Farnaz and Seyed Hossein Iradj Moeini. (DE: Springer Verlag, 2016): 116. 17 Shahri, Jafar. Tihran-i Qadim (The Old Tehran), (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1979): 7.

59 infrastructure agenda in many major cities. These projects mainly included industrial development, infrastructure projects, cross-country railroad system, and the establishment of a national education system. These projects also included the centralization and bureaucratization of the state and its institutions (which had implications on urban form as well).

Initially, the state put forward a modern urban street plan instead of the traditional Iranian street system. The traditional street system was mainly organic alleys that were based on pedestrian movements and had narrow, twisting, partly-roofed alleys. In contrast to traditional streets, the modern planners (both Iranian and western) proposed an orthogonal network of roads with wide straight streets and boulevards. They believed that straight wide streets were a better solution for people’s movements in cities. The municipalities published several articles on the need for creating new wide roads and boulevards.18 They declared new developments and constructions necessitated destroying buildings and the state devoted a national budget to municipalities in major cities to buy people’s houses in old neighborhoods and built wider streets instead. This led to a competition between municipalities to receive the budget and show their loyalty to the state. In many major cities, municipalities destroyed several traditional buildings and historical monuments were destroyed in order to create straight roads and widen the streets.19

In one report, the American embassy estimated that between fifteen thousand to thirty thousand houses and buildings had destroyed only in Tehran for modern road expansion.20 The state then built new boulevards on the ruins of traditional houses and the cities’ walls, and many urban areas witnessed widespread road-widening schemes.21 As a result, the homogeneity and

18 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, 1307/ 1928, p.131. 19 Ibid 20 Karimi, Pamela. Op. Cit. 21 Automobile needs straight streets. See Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p. 201.

60 inwardness of the traditional urban fabric of neighborhoods and cities were dramatically changed due to demolitions that aimed to establish modern highways.

Many newspaper articles discussed the laws and regulations about modern road constructions and the state used modern materials for the construction of these new streets and boulevards. For example, municipalities removed previous stones that covered traditional alleys and instead covered the newly built streets with asphalt.22 In an article “Tehran’s Streets need to be Covered with Asphalt” the author described the utilization of asphalt in European and

American cities as rational and rapid ways to cover streets and sidewalks.23 The author believed that the asphalt would help create beautiful cities and help prevent the diffusion of dust. One can argue that the use of asphalt as a symbol of modern material aimed to hide the traditional

“backward” past and instead envision a modern progressive future in Iran.

Both the road widening act and the utilization of asphalt made cities accessible to motor vehicles and created an open grid system for flow of people and resources into and around urban spaces of the cities. These urban reforms further laid the foundation for the exploitation and consumption of motor vehicles in Iran. It is not surprising that Iran became one of the hubs for automobile exportation for western countries and many companies advertised about different models and brands of automobiles (Figure 2.2 and 3.2). Many newspapers wrote articles and made advertisements about automobiles’ different styles and prices. One article even mentioned that Iranians have created the biggest and the most diverse collections of automobiles in the world as there were more than one hundred different brands of the automobile in Iran at that time.24

22 Arshitikt (The Architect), Bahman 1326/ January 1948, vol. 1, no. 5, p. 164. 23 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, 1308/ 1930, p.143. 24 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, 1310/ 1932, p.176.

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Fig 2.2. A car company advertisement in Kushesh (The Endeavor), Day 1308/ December 1929, no.1 p.3. © MEDOC, University of Chicago.

Fig 3.2. A car company ad includes a “modern” woman (who looks European, not Iranian) driving a car as an example of women’s emancipation in Iran. From Ettelaat (Information), Bahman 1317/ January 1939, p.8. © The Library of Congress (The Iranian World Section).

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Similar to ’s idea that “the street is no longer a track for cattle, but a machine for traffic, an apparatus for its circulation, a new organ, a construction in itself and of the utmost importance, a sort of extended workshop,”25 state officials and urban planners in Iran described the city streets as more than functional routes. For example, they believed that building networks of automobile-oriented streets and massively increasing automobile consumption were the necessary foundation for the future expansion of cities and would help citizens socialize. At the same time, they understood that this helped the state control citizens. For example, the state aimed to widen the streets and created new roads to enhance internal mobility (by creating easier access for cars); however, the state had political intentions behind the road widening as well, particularly with regard to creating accessibility for the military to patrol public spaces.26 That is, with the building of modern roads, the state could physically control cities and the army could find its way through cities more easily. This further increased the power of the state, facilitated the state’s easier control of citizens, and made possible the militarization of the cities when needed. Modern urban planning and design, then, not only provided the ease of city access for the state and its military forces, it also resulted in more state of families and houses.

These changes in urban spaces and streets and the construction of Iran’s national railroad prompted planners to create new maps to document these changes. The state asked Mirza Essa

Khan Sedigh to collaborate with urban planning experts from Paris to survey and create a new map with Persian names for the entire country.27 This resulted in more surveillance and control of the cities and villages by the state. For example, historically in Iran, houses did not have a

25 Le Corbusier. The City of Tomorrow and its Planning (Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press, 1971): 123 26 See Masoud, Amir Bani. Memari-e Moaser-e Iran, dar Takapouy-e Beyn-e Sonat va Modernite (Iranian Contemporary Architecture, An Inquiry into Tradition and Modernity), (Honar-e Memari-e Gharn, Tehran, 2009): 192. See also Madanipour, . “Urban planning and development inTehran.” Cities 23, no.6: (2006): 434. 27 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, 1308/ 1930, p.137.

63 numeric identity; rather, people referred to one’s house primarily by the family name or the name of a male guardian of the household. Reza Shah first appointed the municipalities to name all the streets and create numbers for each house (similar to house address). This made it easier for his state to control the population; a population that rapidly increased every day. It is not surprising that for a long time people rarely used these numbers and new names in their daily interactions.

Even in today’s Iran, people still identify houses by using family names. It is important to mention that the housing identification was part of the state’s census data collection and report.28

The census data collected under Reza Shah’s reign was the first of its kind in the history of Iran.

During this period, the state constructed many western-styled squares in the urban fabric of the cities. The western squares were located primarily at the intersections of famous streets in major cities. The new squares became commercial hubs for the city. For example, the capital city, Tehran, which previously had only one important square in the old center of the city, started to develop around many other squares and became multi-centered. Another revolutionary modernizing act of the state in relation to squares was the erection of figurative statues of Reza

Shah in public spaces (Figure 4.2). Mina Marefat states “the existence of public figurative statues themselves was a significant departure from the past. Adhering to Islam’s disapproval of public representation of figures, the Qajar [a dynasty before Reza Shah] had violated its spirit by confining their self-celebrating statuary to their private palaces,”29 while, Reza Shah extended the use of statues from private to public, as a focal point in public spaces.

28 Iran-e Emruz (Today’s Iran), 1, no. 2/3 (April/June 1939): 31 29 Marefat, Mina. Op. Cit., 93.

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Fig 4.2. The statue of Reza Shah on Meidane Sepah (Sepah Square) in Tehran. Iran-e Emruz (Today’s Iran), Esfand 1317/ Februaury 1939, cover page. © MEDOC, University of Chicago.

Soon after the construction of urban infrastructures, many modernist Iranian architects and planners (during Reza Shah and after) suggested zoning of the city with new suburbs, designed according to modernist ideals of self-sufficient districts. They proposed a radical departure from the traditional districts, where families clustered in homogeneous neighborhoods, to new modern quarters.30 For example, architect and planner Abbas Ajdari suggested building modern city blocks and emphasized the importance of movement and travel in modern cities.

30 Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p.202.

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Similar to Le Corbusier’s criticism of traditional streets as “no more than a trench, a deep cleft, and a narrow passage,” Ajdari suggested new designs to separate modes of transportation in the streets of modern cities in Iran.31 He also proposed that these city blocks include public institutions such as schools, baths, theaters, hospitals, recreational centers, shops, restaurants, and public laundries. He argued that these facilities would make the life of people living on these small city blocks effortless and easier. Like other modernist planners, it is not surprising that

Ajdari ignored the context and characteristics of each city in Iran and suggested a universal, modern plan for all cities regardless of their geographical, climate, and social conditions.

During this period, the population of Iran increased dramatically and housing development plans became widespread. The state emphasized that modern Iran needed better housing conditions and sponsored many housing development plans throughout the country, for both rural and urban lifestyles, as the state defined it. For example, in the northern villages of

Iran, including in , the state ordered the construction of approximately

14,000 rural houses.32 The state emphasized that these houses were constructed from durable materials such as brick and stone instead of mud and therefore provided better living conditions for local residents who lived the agricultural lifestyle. The state promised to build 3,000-4,000 of these houses each year for the villagers around the country.33 In cities, population growth led to the increased construction of new types of modern housing such as apartments and multi-story buildings. Indeed, multi-story apartments became a novel concept and a favorable building typology in many major Iranian cities such as Tehran, Shiraz, and Mashhad. As property values of buildings on modern streets increased, multi-story apartments (three to four stories) were built

31 Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 16. 32 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, Khordad 1320/ May 1941, p.508. 33 Ibid.

66 as mixed-use buildings in a variety of styles (Figure 5.2).34 Typically mixed-use buildings had retail on the lower ground floor, offices on the second floor, and residential units on the upper floors. Through these various constructions, Iranian cities grew in size and complexity.

Fig 5.2. A multi-story building in Ferdowsi street. Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p.8. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Library, Tehran.

These multi-story, mixed-use constructions, combined with broader urban reforms, brought with them new modern institutions and buildings. Banks, post offices, telegraph houses, hospitals, hotels, city halls, police offices, and European-style shops sprang up throughout Iran’s

34 Marefat, Mina. Op. Cit., 218.

67 cities. These modern institutions had their own form of architectural design, modern plans and outlines, spatial arrangements, and construction materials. Their specialized design limited the state’s ability to influence the spatial arrangements of the private spaces in these plans; at the same time, they created room for the state to influence the design of the outer building façades.

As a result, the building façades became a space upon which the state could promote its nationalist modern agenda and a political tool used to reconfigure the image of the country, as I describe below.

Reza Shah’s state supported the idea of promoting the profession of architecture design and construction. European-trained Iranian architects such as Vartan Avanessian brought this into national discussions.35 In advertisements and articles of the time period, the state publicly proposed that buildings needed to be designed by experts. State officials created laws and regulations that required citizens to submit their buildings’ plans (housing or any other function) to municipalities for approval before beginning construction. Many advertisements published by municipalities clearly expected that: 1) Before the construction of houses and retail properties the owner is required to have official approval from municipality; 2) In order to issue a construction permit, the plans and drawings should be submitted by an expert architect to the local municipality for investigation; 3) The plans must include the design of exterior façades, sections, and elevations; 4) Two copies of the plan must be submitted, one for construction purposes and the other for municipality records and their further inspections; and 5) If these procedures were not followed, the owners need to pay the appropriate penalties.36 These regulations transformed and privatized the profession of architecture in Iran, placing it in the hands of the state and

35 Avanessian,Vartan. Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p.5. 36 Sartip Bozarjomehr (Kafil baladie) in Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, Ad number: 1962, 1307/ 1928, p.131.

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European-trained architect.37 These laws generally enabled the first generation of Iranian architects, most of whom were trained in Europe, to define the modern profession and ultimately to expand it beyond the representative and figurative requirements of Reza Shah’s nationalist modern architecture.

The state and European-trained modernist architects heavily emphasized the new design of the outer façades of private buildings. Previously the main housing typology in Iran was courtyard house and houses were attached to each other. To achieve privacy and protection, these houses had no openings in their outer façades (see Chapter Three for a detailed analysis of courtyard houses). The modernizing state of Reza Shah argued that courtyard houses were less healthy than modern houses, a trend that continued in later periods (e.g., the second Pahlavi era).

For example, the Architect Iraj Moshiri has written that in the past in many Asian (Middle

Eastern) countries, the purpose of the twisted narrow alleys was only for pedestrians’ movement.

There were no openings or windows on building façades which prevented air ventilation and incursion of light in spaces.38 He stated that it was common for modern design to have windows opened to alleys and suggested a 5-10 meter empty space in the shape of a small garden between houses. Moshiri proposed that even those who renovated their courtyard houses needed to put a number of openings in the façades.39 This new design approach disregarded concepts such as privacy that was a critical cultural factor in traditional housing design in Iran.

37 See Chapter Three for more descriptions on the professionalization of the profession of architecture. 38 Moshiri, Iraj “Shahrsazi dar Asre Kononi” (Urban Planning in Today’s World), Arshitikt (The Architect), Bahman 1326/ January 1948, vol. 1, no. 5, p. 162 39 Ibid.

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Iranian scholars such as Bani Masoud, Ghobadian, and Kiani claim that various architecture styles were practiced during this transformational period.40 However, they all concur that it was nationalist modern architecture that became the state’s favorite style. Similar to other secular ideas of the state, “references to Islamic architectural styles were no longer followed in buildings built by the government and social elite; a trend which was later followed by other builders and Western-educated architects.”41 For the state, nationalist architecture involved the exploitation of pre-Islamic architecture of the Persian Achaemenian Empire.42 The state primarily sponsored buildings that followed and imitated Persian neoclassic style in their façades

(Figure 6.2). For example, despite the emphasis on modern design, in monumental state buildings such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the tall columns and ornamentations were designed to resemble Achaemenid palaces in . The revival of neoclassic Achaemenian architecture and its assimilation with modern plans and construction materials became a favorite state style during Reza Shah. This reflects the state’s contradictory ideas about modern architectural styles and national identity; on one hand, the state’s imagined national identity in many ways invoked a collective past (e.g., pre-Islamic architecture), whereas its notion of modernization looked toward a developed, westernized future.

40 Masoud, Amir Bani. Op. Cit. and Ghobadian, Vahid Theories and Styles in Iranian Contemporary Architecture, (sabk shenasi va mabanie nazari dar memari moaser Iran), (Tehran: Elme Memar, 1392/2013). 41 Abdollah-Khan-Gorji, B. “Urban form Transformations: The Experience of Tehran before and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution”. (PhD Dissertation, University of Southern California, 1997): 77. 42 For discussions on Reza Shah’s views on nationalism and architectural modernization see: Grigor, Talinn. Op. Cit., and Grigor, Talinn. “Recultivating ‘Good Taste’: The Early Pahlavi Modernists and their Society for National Heritage.” Iranian Studies: Journal of the Society for Iranian Studies 37, no. 1 (2004): 17-45.

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Figs 6.2. An Example of modern-nationalist State architecture, Municipality Building in Tehran. The capitals of pillars imitate the pillars from Achaemenian palaces. Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p.5. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Library, Tehran.

The process of imagining a national Iranian community and its relation to the construction of modern urban spaces and modern institutions was indeed a contradictory process during Reza Shah’s reign.43 One group of architects, for example, considered the mimicry of the

43 Anderson, Benedict R. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. (New York; London; Verso, 2006): 6. For further information regarding these contradictory acts

71 past and the use of those imitations for the construction of new architecture. They believed in the combination of modern methods and materials with the revival of traditional styles and motifs.

Due to the support from the state this group forwarded some steps and constructed a number of buildings particularly in the capital city, Tehran. Buildings such as Bank-e Melli (National

Bank), (municipality building), Post and Telegraph buildings are recognizable examples of this trend.44

This trend was met with criticism by many European-trained modernist architects such as the editor of Arshitikt magazines, Vartan Avanessian. He claimed that the revival of neoclassic

Achaemenian architecture was a failing trend in architecture. He considered the mimicking of past architecture an example of catastrophic architecture in the modern era. Vartan urged those architects not to modernize traditional architecture or mimic traditional forms and styles. Instead, he invited these architects to free themselves from traditional styles and motifs. In particular, he asked them to stop the revival of historical motifs from Achaemenian palaces and specifically the utilization of animal motifs as the head of pillars and columns in their designs. Vartan stated

“any rational mind shouts: Stop this approach! Are you going to turn Tehran into a zoo with all these statues of cows and lions?!”45 Vartan and similar critics indicated that the notions of national-modernity that seeks its imitation in the past (i.e. Achaemenian empire) disregards the realities of western modern architecture.

Vartan also compared the practice of modern architecture to clothing fashion and beauty standards. He asked those architects who looked for the imitation of the past, “how do you feel if

during Reza shah’s reign see Avanessian, Vartan. “Masaeli Marbout bi Mimari dar Iran” (Issues Concerning Architecture in Iran), Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p.5-6. 44 Ghobadian discusses many building typologies and their modern functions during this era. See his chapter on the first Pahlavi in: Ghobadian, Vahid. Op. Cit. 45 Avanessian, Vartan. “Masaeli Marbout bi Mimari dar Iran” (Issues Concerning Architecture in Iran), Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 4-9.

72 someone asks you to wear a cloth from the Darius era (Achaemenian empire)?”46 He replied,

“you do not want to be mocked by other people because of your clothing, so why do you insist on creating architecture and buildings that resemble and revitalize architecture of the Darius era?”47 Similarly, Vartan described the revitalization and restoration of traditional modes made modern through unnecessary decoration as similar to “an old woman who attempts to turn herself into a young lady by putting extreme makeup on her face.”48 These statements indicate how in the minds of European-trained Iranian architects such as Vartan, any other previous styles of architecture were seen as belonging to the past and as unproductive for the progress of the nation. In this view, alternative modern architecture that does not mimic the past can be imagined as a fresh potential for the future of the nation. Vartan further stated that he was not arguing to completely abandon of ancient and traditional architecture of Iran; instead, he explained that the problem with the architecture of the past lied in its restricted spatial configuration, its limitation in the knowledge of scale, the lack of technical construction knowledge (he referred to how the thickness of the walls made the inside spaces smaller), and the absence of beauty in its external appearances.49

It is not surprising that Vartan and other similar modernist architects such as Gabriel

Guevrekian, Mohsen Forughi, and Iraj Moshiri aspired to look to the future and adapt modern architecture as a way to achieve an ideal modern lifestyle. In a number of articles in Arshitikt magazine, this group stated that traditional architecture and/or the revival of neoclassic

46 Ibid, 6. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid, 7. 49 Ibid.

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Achaemenian architecture is in contradiction to the modern era and is a denial of the needs and demands of new generations.50 For example, Vartan declared

A nation cannot only rely on its past. Instead, a nation should be concerned about the current era and its future. Everything in the world experienced an evolution due to modernization and therefore architecture needs to follow this trend as well.51 Besides, the Arshitikt magazine revealed the end of traditional architecture and the birth of modern architecture in Iran with the construction of two buildings: Bashgahe Afsaran (Veteran’s

Club) on 3th Esfand street, and Honarestane dokhtaran (Girls’ College) in Tehran (Figure 7.2).52

The magazine’s author identifies societal evolution, technological development, industrialization of the country, freedom of thinking, and new construction materials such as cement as factors which can assist young modern Iranian architects in creating an architecture for the future.

Importantly, this group also debated the pure mimicry of European modern architecture and endeavored to extract ideas of modern design and appropriate it as a more local design approach.53 This idea is most evident in their design of modern houses (I provide an example of modern house design in Chapter Three).

50 Ibid, 6. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid, 8. 53 Khorsand, Manouchehr. “Anjuman-i Arshitiktha-i Irani aie Diplume” (Th society of Iranian Architects with Diploma), Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 3.

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Fig 7.2. Honarestane dokhtaran (Girls’ College) in the 3rd Esfan Street in Tehran. Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p.5. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Library, Tehran

Similar to many European-trained modernist architects, many architecture students were not satisfied with the modernization of the cities and the new construction. In an article written by an Iranian architect who was a student in Europe at the time, he described the architecture of

Iran chaotic and heading toward destruction.54 He asserted the new constructions were neither traditional nor modern. He stated that even those who followed modern design, imitated modern styles in an incomplete and superfluous way. He explained how during his visit to Iran, he observed Tehran as a beautiful European city; however, in a superficial way. He identified the lack of professional architects and at the same time the business of well-known architects dealing with many projects as the main reasons for such failure.

54 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, Esfand 1308/ March 1930, p. 141

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These perspectives, which emphasized that architects and planners should not or cannot look to the future through the lens of past, and which provided alternative imagined national futures through design, never received enough recognition at the time from Reza Shah’s state, government authorities including municipalities, and even citizens. Modernist architects and planners’ claims and practices were not able to disrupt the state’s contradictory attempt to homogenize urban spaces and images of cities in Iran through modern practices that mimicked the past.

Spaces of Domination and Resistance

The radical conversion of cities represented by wall removal, new street networks, and urban infrastructure not only modified the cityscape but also dramatically changed cities’ social organization. The introduction of the street as a modern concept in contrast to the traditional pathways, and the overall transformation of the city, opened new spaces for the free movement of people and led to major socio-cultural changes. These social changes, which were promoted by Reza Shah’s state hand-in-hand with nationalist architectural modernization, aimed to contribute to modern cultural shifts related to gender, class, and racial equality. The state and

European-trained Iranian architects and planners attempted to democratize public spaces and argued, for example, that streets needed to be aesthetically-pleasing spaces where people (both men and women) could come to walk and socialize.55 Municipalities planted trees (e.g., plane trees) on both sides of the street for landscaping and shading for pedestrians’ promenades.56 Such practices resembled the role of roofed traditional alleys for the citizens. The arrangement of land

55 Everyday sceneries have an influence on an individual upbringing and as much as architects use regular lines and rhythmic shapes in cities, this helps mind arrangements and the order of the society. Engineer Bazargan’s talk in radio Tehran. Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p. 198 56 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, 1317/ 1938, p.338.

76 use, street patterns, building forms, and gender relations put forward to change the image of many major cities from traditional, inward-oriented Middle Eastern private cities to modern, outward-oriented public cities.

Addressing and altering gender relations was an important component of the state’s modernization project in Iranian-Islamic society. Prior to this time period there was a clear distinction between the masculine public spaces of the cities and the feminized private spaces of the houses. In order to cross the feminized private domestic spaces and enter the masculine public world, women were obligated to wear the veil (Chador) and shadow themselves as invisible beings in the streets in Iran.57 This gender segregation also controlled women’s sexuality.58 These binaries further represented the secluded, private world of women as subordinate and powerless and the monopolized, public world of men as dominant and powerful.

The production of new public spaces aimed to reduce gendered segregation and create more spaces for both genders to socialize. Until this time, public places such as streets, squares, and shops were all considered masculine spaces. The state argued that the existing traditional gender relations needed to be replaced by “modern” relations, based on western values and standards, to allow women’s participation in national spaces and processes.59 Reza Shah explicitly linked gender equality to national progress and changed a number of patriarchal laws that upheld gender segregation and that women activists were advocating to change. In many cases, changes in these laws had been demanded by almost all women in Iran. For example, in

1934, a law set heavy fines for cinemas, restaurants, and hotels that did not open doors to both

57 Mernissi, Fatima. Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World, (Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1992): 143. 58 Ibid and Abu-Lughod, Lila. “Introduction: Feminist Longings and Postcolonial Conditions,” in Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, edited by Lila Abu-Lughod (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) 59 Sadeghipour, A. Yadegar Gozashteh (Collection of Speeches by Reza Shah), (Tehran: Javidan, 1968): 137-9.

77 genders (previously businesses did not allow women to enter – add something like this here to explain what happened previously). Such reforms in public settings made the relations between men and women more direct, transparent, less mysterious and less discriminatory towards women. In this way, public spaces such as streets and squares and public businesses manifested the emerging democratization and equality of space. Streets functioned as the stage for new social events; events that were accessible to all Iranians regardless of religion, ethnicity, class or even gender. One can argue that these reforms changed the social interaction pattern in many major cities in Iran.

Reza Shah’s most dramatic and perhaps best-known social modernization reform was the

Unveiling Act of 1936, which banned the women’s veil (Chador) and mandated women to unveil themselves in public spaces.60 The law stated that if women wanted to use any public spaces or facilities beyond the house, they could not wear the traditional veil.61 Reza Shah believed that the veil impeded physical exercise and the ability of women to enter (public) society. He believed that unveiling could contribute to the progress of the nation. He declared that unveiling gave women more physical and social choice of movement and facilitated women’s participation in social activities, including state-sponsored activities that were part of the state’s modernization agenda (e.g., women’s teaching in schools, working in factories, among others).62 The announcement of the Unveiling Act of 1936 was pivotal in increasing women’s social participation in public spaces and dramatically changed the traditional cultural and physical boundaries of Iranian cities and society.

60 Chapter Four of this dissertation describes the Unveiling Act and women’s experiences in details. 61 Lewis, Franklin, and Farzin Yazdanfar. In A Voice Of Their Own. (Translated by Farzin Yazdanfar Franklin Lewis. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda, 1996): xi. 62 As unveiling became a law, the patriarchal guradians of families were unable to control women.

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The interaction between men and women in modern public and private spaces, including streets, public gardens, horse-drawn carriages and automobiles, restaurants and cafes, parties, theatrical plays, and movie theaters63 introduced a new set of experiences in the emerging modern society of Iran. The pages of Iranian magazines and newspapers were filled with articles on women’s emancipation and their freedom to use public spaces, and above all, the gender- desegregation of public spaces in a variety of contexts. For example, in an advertisement in

Ettelaat magazine, the author praised how the municipality of Tehran was constructing the

“National Garden” near Mashgh square. Even though the “National Garden” had not been completed by the time the article was published, the author described how the gardening, the sidewalk paving, and modern facilities housed many women and men every afternoon.64 Another article focused on the street sidewalks which were previously gender segregated. The article explained how men previously used the sidewalks on the right while women used the sidewalks on the left. The author endorsed the mixed use of sidewalks, as men and women could walk hand in hand in public spaces. Considering that women previously had no place in public spaces such as cafes, cinemas, and theaters,65 magazine and newspaper advertisements began to announce various mixed theatrical shows and movies, making them a public promenade for women and families.66 This was reflected in Iranian literature as well. For example, in the Persian novel,

Shohare Ahoo Khanoom, Homa asks her husband, Miran, to take her to the cinema screening of

63 Rostam-Kolayi, Jasamin. “Expanding Agendas for the ‘new’ Iranian Woman: Family Law, Work, and Unveiling.” In The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921-1941, by Stephanie Cronin, (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003): 172. 64 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, 1307/ 1929, p.266. 65 Ibid, 129. 66 Ibid, 220. There is an article in this page of Ettelaat newspaper that describes in Mashhad, a major city in Iran, the state led both sexes to enter cinemas together. It was mentioned that women and men need to occupy separate spaces.

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Reza Shah’s trip to Turkey.67 This was the first time women were allowed to go to cinemas. In another example, whereas previously women and men could not ride together in the same horse- drawn carriages (Figure 8.2) even if they were relatives, following Reza Shah’s gender desegregation, they could not only ride in the same carriages (or car), but women could also drive a car. Both genders could even dance together (Waltz dance) in cafes.

Fig 8.2: Women and men were segregated in the same horse-drawn carriages. Nahid (Venus), 31 Ordibehesht 1305/ 22 May 1926, Year 5, no.66, p.4. © MEDOC, University of Chicago.

Reza Shah’s social reforms they could ride together. This gendered restructuring of the boundaries between public and private spaces in many ways made these spaces more

67 Afghani, Ali Mohammad. Shohare Ahoo Khanoom (Mrs. Ahoo’s Husband), (Tehran: Amirkabir: 1340/1962): 537.

80 intertwined. The meshing of public and private spaces to some degree turned them into less gender-segregated and more inclusive spaces.

Whereas previously women were segregated and had few interactions outside the home, the social reforms, including the Unveiling Act, helped women overcome traditional patriarchal barriers. It is important to mention, however, that this process primarily benefitted elite, urban, upper-class women. Women such as Badr-al-Moluk Bamdad, Sedigheh Dowlatabadi, -al-

Hoda Mangeneh, and Farkhonde Jurabchi, among many others, are well-known examples of women who praised these reforms as a way to overcome patriarchal barriers. In their diaries and memoirs, these elite women praise the Unveiling Act as a form of women’s emancipation and argued that veiling is the primary source of women’s limited access to knowledge and success.

Badr-al-Moluk Bamdad, for example, describes the day that Reza Shah publicly announced the unveiling of all women. In a section titled “A Momentous Decree” of her memoir (published in

1977), she narrates the effects of the Unveiling Act as:

After that day, women wearing veils were forbidden to circulate in the main streets of Tehran and the provincial cities. They were guided by the police into side streets … The women themselves found their new situation strange and startling. Thanks to the unshakable strength of will of the nation’s liberator, the difficulties were overcome.68 Bamdad applauds the state-imposed unveiling as a symbol of social progress from the “nation’s liberator,” Reza Shah. She further reflects on women’s lives prior to Reza Shah:

since the women had to be allowed out of doors from time to time if necessary tasks were to be performed […] they gradually became prisoners, confined in the

68 Bamdad, Badr Al-Moluk. From Darkness into Light: Women’s Emancipation in Iran, trans. F. R. C. Bagley (California: Mazda Publishers, 1977): 96.

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home or under the veil and the (Chador). In their ignorance and isolation, they remained unaware of their own capabilities and spiritual worth.69 Bamdad and her peers adapted themselves to the new rules and regulations and were able to take advantage of the freedom of movement to participate in public social life.

Similarly, Sedigheh Dowlatabadi also praised the Unveiling Act as an opportunity for the freedom of movement for women.70 Another women advocate, Farkhonde Jurabchi, participated in the Women’s World Congress as the first Iranian representative to discuss women’s issues in

Iran with her elite female counterparts in , Turkey in 1930s.71 These elite women who interpreted the veil as a signifier of backwardness praised Reza Shah as an enlightened ruler who desegregated gender relations and public and private spaces. They viewed the Unveiling Act as an effort which democratized gender roles, increased freedom of access, and confronted traditional patriarchal ideologies. Their privileges of gender and class allowed these women to speak on behalf of all Iranian women and to claim for them a traditional past and a modern future through a “collective will.”

During this transformative period, women’s increased access to public spaces was seen by many as challenging traditionalism and patriarchal ideologies. An unveiled woman was protected by the state and its law, which allowed her, for example, to seek state protection if a male family member refused to allow her to be unveiled in a public space. At the same time and paradoxically, while women may have acquired some freedom within their patriarchal families, loosening the grip of their male relatives’ control, they were increasingly subjected to patriarchal state control. Indeed, Reza Shah extended his power, authority, and control not only over women, their bodies, and destinies but ultimately over the lives of men as well. In other words,

69 Ibid, 7. 70 Jahan-e Zanan (Women’s World), Isfand 1299/ 4 March 1921, no.2. 71 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, p. 266.

82 the Unveiling Act was still framed in patriarchal terms. Women were arguably freed from the private patriarchy (their male guardian) yet they were still bound by the public, albeit westernized patriarchy (state). A western notion of state protectionism and paternalism framed

Reza Shah’s support for women’s rights. As women exited the home, with the intention of taking advantage of the opportunities offered by Reza Shah, they, like men, were subject to state power and surveillance in new ways. Women’s bodies which were the property of families now belonged even more to the modern state and nation.

This is not to suggest that men totally lost their dominion over women; on the contrary, many husbands, male relatives, and business owners opposed Reza Shah’s social reforms, arguing that men and women should remain in their traditional roles. This created great friction for women who were told by their husbands to continue wearing the veil, yet fined or penalized by the state if they appeared in public wearing their veil.

In addition, lower-middle-class peasants and religious women experienced Reza Shah’s social reforms in a much more negative way. Unlike elite, urban women, many of these women felt an acute impact of this law as a violation of their bodies and their senses of self. For veiled women, the Unveiling Act was not only an intrusion into what they perceived as their identity and private lives but it also created additional limitations insofar as they felt uncomfortable being unveiled in public spaces and/or their male relatives demanded that they continue to wear the veil. This ultimately limited their mobility and opportunities. Due to state law, veiled women were not allowed to use public transportation (e.g., riding in horse-drawn carriages or cars), they were not allowed in public facilities such as cinemas and public bathhouses, they were prevented from shopping in most stores, and even from receiving treatment in public health clinics.72 Many veiled women were prohibited by their male relatives to leave their homes, and many young

72 “Sazmane Ketabkhane va Asnade Melli Iran (National Library and Archive of Iran), no.293/13213.

83 girls, too, were prevented by their guardians from attending school. Again, Iranian literature illustrates these tensions: In the novel, Shohare Ahoo Khanoom, the author Ali Mohammad

Afghani describes how the character Miran was worried about his daughter going to school unveiled and his young wife going out into public unveiled.73 These were the concerns of many families and communities during the years the Unveiling Act was effective (1936-1941).74

Interestingly, it was in this climate of limited mobility that the traditional Iranian urban form, with organic narrow alleys and intertwined architecture, became the physical tool of resistance against modernity and state power for veiled women.75 For example, one of the main needs of women during this period was using the (public bath). In traditional Iranian architecture, due to many limitations such as access to water and/or lack of urban plumbing, houses did not have baths and therefore the population needed to use public baths. Although through modern architecture and the introduction of plumbing in major cities private baths became part of the modern architecture of Iranian houses, in older districts and poor neighborhoods, public baths were still the only source of bathing for people. Soon after the 1936

Unveiling Act was announced, the state mandated that could not allow veiled women to use their baths and threatened to penalize hammam owners that violated this law.76 As a form of solidarity, many hammam owners allowed veiled women to use their baths. Typically, veiled women would remain home and hide from the gaze of state police during the day and in the middle of the night they would climb over the roofs of their neighbors’ houses to reach the

73 Afghani, Ali Mohammad. Op. Cit., 445. The author argues that in low class of society the source of worries was not only based of religion beliefs or logic, he believes it was mainly a matter of ignorance. 74 The Unveiling Act was enforced for five years from 1936 until 1941. With the abdication of Reza Shah from power and upon the start of second Pahlavi dynasty (1941-1978), his son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, made the Unveiling Act voluntary. 75 Ibid, 202. “At first many women reacted by wearing long dresses and , but in late spring of 1936 the government gave orders to local authorities to stop this practice or face the consequences.” 76 “Sazmane Ketabkhane va Asnade Melli Iran (National Library and Archive of Iran), no.293/39402.

84 neighborhood (Mahalla) public bath.77 Through this process, the “inviolable” division and borders between public and private were challenged. These rooftop pathways which were once

“spaces of captivity” for women, became “reversed: the inside outside,”78 turning formerly private spaces into public sites of solidarity and liberation far from the gaze of state. On the other hand, for affluent families who could afford the expense of a construction, building a bath in a corner of their courtyard also became a solution. Having baths as an attached section to the architecture of traditional houses then became an element of resistance insofar as they allowed women to remain veiled and to take a bath.

Elements of resistance were not limited to home bath construction or creating rooftop pathways where veiled women could walk, meet, and socialize outside the state gaze.

Historically, families typically lived as extended families or if they could afford it, family members would buy/rent houses attached to each other in one neighborhood. In the years of the

Unveiling Act, to make it trouble-free and effortless for veiled females to socialize and communicate with each other, these families started to cut their joint walls and create hidden inside doors between their houses. This phenomenon happened primarily in southern cities of

Iran. My grandmother, for example, always points out how these small doors made female socialization possible and unproblematic. All of these spaces then represented and symbolized the veil, and both the spaces and the veil embodied the protection of the female body. Therefore, for those who viewed Reza Shah’s project as imposing western values, these spaces became a site of resistance against modernity and state power; for others, it was a welcome move away from traditionalism and patriarchal ideologies.

77 Ibid, no.350/272. 78 See Foucault, Michel. “Force of Flight,” cited in Stuart Elden and Jeremy W. Crampton, Space, Knowledge and Power: Foucault and Geography. (England, VT: Ashgate, 2007).

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Given these paradoxes of Reza Shah’s social and spatial reforms, one can argue that the

“imagined” women’s emancipation reforms during Reza Shah’s reign was not inclusive for all women. Nonetheless, following Benedict Anderson’s depiction of imagined communities as

“imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion, these reforms became part of Iranians’ understandings of national identity.”79

Paradoxically, the forced unveiling of women in public spaces added a hierarchical tension and separation amongst women: Instead of creating solidarity and cooperation among women of distinct social classes and ethnic groups, it became “the illusion of a collective identity through the political staging of the vicarious spectacle.”80 In addition, during this period, public spaces became elements of modern biopolitics,81 in which Iranian women’s bodies were subjugated, disciplined and controlled through the measurement and surveillance of the Iranian population.

Conclusion: Transnationalism Within: Modernization, Nationalism, and Women’s

Emancipation

The history of modernization in urban spaces and women’s so-called “emancipation” in relation to nationalism during the first Pahlavi period requires an intersectional and transnational lens. The nuances and paradoxes and the daily tactics and choices that women (and men) have made create a complex picture of this era. On one hand, it is the conflict between unequal power relations between the state as “us” and Iranian women as collective “others.” On the other hand,

79 Anderson, Benedict. Op. Cit., 6. 80 McClintock, Anne. Op. Cit., 373. 81 For Foucault the concept of biopolitics is based on his notion of biopower, which describes the ways in which the power of a state has been extended over bodies of a population and/or a nation. These bodies are both the physical and metaphorical bodies. For further discussion see Michel Foucault. Security, Territory, Population. (GB: Springer Nature, 2007).

86 it is the hierarchical conflict between Iranian women of different social classes, the privileged elites and those of the lower classes. By positioning the veiled traditional woman as the embodiment of oppressed womanhood, elite westernized women represented themselves as ideal archetypes of modernity and progress of the nation. In so doing, they dismissed the paradox of state-sponsored women’s emancipation and the role of patriarchal ideologies in its construction.

For elite women, the state’s emancipatory project was to further loosen the grip of traditionalism and their male relatives’ control, although they did not foresee how they as women increasingly fell under the gaze and control of the state and modern social institutions.82

Despite the fact that Reza Shah’s modernization agenda was seen as revolutionary and/or progressive by some women and men in Iran, it was also limited in extending full citizen rights to women and fully democratizing Iran. As a Shah, Reza Pahlavi introduced and helped institutionalize the Iranian modern nation-state, yet with no introduction of democratic political institutions and processes. Rather, his strategies were top-down and thus authoritarian in this sense. Furthermore, the convergence of western and Iranian state discourse on women’s emancipation and modernization worked in tandem with the newly-introduced westernized patriarchal nationalist discourse, limiting women’s agency and ironically initiating the same prohibition on veiling that was previously placed on unveiled women.83 The emergence of modern social hierarchies created new forms of class divisions when the first Pahlavi state and emancipated elite women applauded state-imposed unveiling as a symbol of social progress; meanwhile, lower-middle-class urban and rural women felt the acute impact of this law as a violation of their bodies and their senses of self. The first Pahlavi state, therefore, is not a history of class solidarity among Iranian women but rather a history of restructuring power and dividing

82 Exercising power is the state and modern institutional controls over women’s bodies (biopolitics). 83 And, we of course have observed the more recent reversal of this process in the 1979 , at which time women were again forced to wear the veil.

87 women between elites and others. In fact, elite women who supported Reza Shah’s measures helped produce a binary narrative of “semi bourgeois-modern-unveiled us” vs. “backward-pre- modern-veiled other,” through their proto-feminist discourse and through their silence on issues of class, culture, religion, freedom of choice, and equal access.

It can be argued that the Unveiling Act helped to categorize, classify, order, divide, and create a hierarchy among veiled and unveiled women, instead of creating a “women’s rights” notion or expectation of solidarity and cooperation among women of distinct social classes and ethnic groups. Women who continued to look to the West for models to emulate, who considered themselves emancipated, and the women who felt oppressed by the Unveiling Act and engaged in acts of resistance, both groups symbolize how the connections between the personal and the public, the body and the urban fabric, as well as how class, gender, and religion intersect in very complex ways. This case also illustrates how public spaces are (gendered) sites of domination and subordination, yet also terrains of resistance and transformation. In other words, the occupation of spaces by women where their bodies can be protected from the state, underlines that these spaces of resistance produce solidarity and empathy beyond pragmatics of the bath— the isolation of the private is here turned into a community.

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Chapter Three: Redomestication: From a Traditional Courtyard House to a Modern

House

Introduction:

During the massive modernization of the built environment in early twentieth-century

Iran, Reza Shah’s state [or administration] advocated for modern villa-style houses and apartments (“modern houses”) as a more suitable form of housing in Iran. State leaders suggested that modern technological developments made possible more appropriate living spaces for families. They argued that modern domestic spaces were healthier and provided more suitable housing and living conditions. Several newspapers and women’s magazines of the time period published articles and advertisements on the topic of modern housing, proclaiming the benefits of relocating to modern houses.1 The state ordered and commissioned both European- trained Iranian (and sometimes western) architects to redesign and refashion domestic spaces and create modern housing projects across the entire country. The state viewed modernization as a dramatic and unparalleled break between the past and the present, which was known as the

“modern moment.”2 While many Iranian modernist architects had diverse opinions about modern design, the approach they shared helped institutionalize major changes in housing architecture in

Iran. For example, many European-trained Iranian architects3 consistently devalued courtyard houses and their segregated lifestyle, claiming that they were old, backward, and ineffective for the modern era. They praised the technological developments in the west and framed western

1 For example, several issues of Ettelaat (Information), Women’s World (Jahane Zan), Alam-e Nisvan (Women’s World), and Iran-e Emruz (Iran of Today). 2 Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996): 3. 3 Such as Vartan Avanessian, Gabriel Guevrekian, and Mohsen Forughi. For detailed description see several issues of Arshitikt (The Architect) journal.

89 lifestyle as advanced and progressive. They suggested modern housing as a solution to help break the gender segregation of public and private spaces.

Gender was thus central to these architects’ views of the modernization of the built environment. In their view, both the design of the house and conceptions of domesticity were in need of modernization. Their training in western architectural theories of domesticity and housing culture invoked in them a sense of urgency to reframe gender roles in modern houses.

They hoped and assumed that with the massive relocation of families to modern spaces, Iranians would automatically accept and practice these modern, westernized behaviors and assume new gender roles and relations.

Instead, many people were pushed out of their comfort zone to accept modernization.

Living in modern houses often entailed changes that threatened their longstanding cultural values. For example, new spaces in the modern house reconfigured the “appropriate” gendered usage of space within the house by women and men. Due to changes in the design of the house, the interaction between female members of the household and, (male family members who related a woman by blood-ties and those with whom marriage was prohibited) and na- mahram (male strangers) men gradually shifted. And as a result, the concept of privacy in the household was drastically changed. Contrary to the Reza Shah state’s and modernist architects’ who assumed a monolithic view on these modern shifts, the lack of a clear definition and perception of modernization resulted in different reactions amongst various families and communities. Many urban middle-class families willingly accepted the changes as a reprieve from traditionalism and patriarchal ideologies, whereas working class and religious families were less inclined to embrace the changes that modernization brought due to their religious beliefs and/or limited economic resources.

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In this chapter I examine the transformation and alteration of private housing and domestic architecture, from traditional courtyard houses to modern houses, that was central to

Reza Shah’s dramatic modernization of the built environment in early twentieth-century Iran.

Specifically, I investigate three interrelated questions: how and to what extent did both women and men (from different backgrounds) benefit and/or resist the alterations of domestic spaces?

What are the convergences and divergences in the design of courtyard and modern houses in relation to gender roles, family relations, and notions such as privacy? And, what is the agency and role of women (if any), in the negotiation, appropriation, and (re)shaping of modern houses?

Courtyard Houses, the Veil, Privacy, Visibility, and the Gaze

The courtyard is one of the world’s oldest housing typologies. Urban and architectural history scholars have divergent views on the genealogy of courtyard. Amos Rapoport, for example, claims that the existence of courtyard houses traces back to ten thousand years ago and has more than forty forms based on its place of origin.4 In contrast, Brian Edwards claim that the development of courtyard houses dates back only five thousand years.5 Scholars also hold divergent opinions on the courtyard house place of origin. Some consider the classical Roman atrium and Greek pastas houses as the original prototypes,6 while others identify the Middle East as its site of origin. There is some consensus that the courtyard house as a form of housing typology expanded globally “from Çatal Hüyük (10,000 B.P.), through the Indus Valley

4 Rapoport, Amos. “The Nature of the Courtyard House: A Conceptual Analysis.” Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review 18 no.2 (2007): 57-72. 5 Edwards, Brian, Magda Sibley, Mohamad Hakim, and Peter Land. Courtyard Housing: Past, Present, Future. (New York: Ingram Content Group, Inc, 2005). 6 Petruccioli, Atillio. “The courtyard house: typological variations over space and time,” in ed. Edwards, Brian, Magda Sibley, Mohamad Hakim, and Peter Land. Courtyard Housing: Past, Present, Future. (New York: Taylor & Francis: 2006): 3.

91 civilization (5,000 B.P.), the ancient Middle East (Turkey, , Ur, etc.), China,

Ancient Greece, and Rome, to the present.”7 It has traveled from Greece to Cyprus and it passes through Iran and many other Middle Eastern countries.8 Despite their physical similarity, courtyard houses are not mono-typological. Its various forms have been reappropriated, reshaped, and redesigned based on the host region’s geography and climate conditions. The capability of its architectural form to adapt to various climates played a role in the existence, continuation, and expansion of this housing typology. For example, courtyard houses are well- known as an environmentally responsive building form in hot and dry regions.9

Moreover, courtyard houses’ physical shapes offer the possibility of very dense, homogenous, monoculture urbanization. For example, in Iran, in the compact urban texture of historic towns such as Shiraz, Yazd, and Isfahan, courtyard houses were attached to one another and had plain walls with little or no openings to the streets or alleys.10 Courtyard houses differ based on their orientation, size, and spatial configuration. In addition, societal norms and cultural beliefs such as gender perceptions and privacy11 have made this typology diverse. For example, the “Introvert” type was more common on the hot arid zones and desert areas in the south of Iran or on the slopes of the mountainous. While an “Extrovert” type was typical on the fertile fields in the Northern part of Iran.

7 Rapoport, Amos. Op. Cit., 57. 8 For example, , , Iran, , , India, and other neighbor Arab countries and ends at China. See different examples in Brian Edwards, Magda Sibley, Mohamad Hakim, and Peter Land. Op. Cit. 9 The courtyard house protects its inhabitants against the wind, mitigated the effects of solar excess, and exploited natural cooling strategies to maintain comfortable conditions within the house. 10 Memarian, Gholamhossein and Frank Brown, “The Shared Characteristics of Iranian and Arab Courtyard Houses,” in Courtyard Housing: Past, Present, and Future, ed. Brian Edwards, Magda Sibley, Mohamad Hakim, and Peter Land. (New York: Taylor & Francis: 2006): 28. 11 The concept of privacy is complex and multidimensional. However, it is generally interpreted in studies of architecture and space as the control of unwanted interaction.

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In fact, characteristics such as orientation, size, and spatial configuration led this typology to become part of the traditional or pre-modern vernacular architecture of most areas in the world. Courtyard houses have existed in ancient Persia and in the pre-Islamic architecture of

Iran. Iranian urban scholars have pointed out that “there is evidence that houses with courtyards existed in Iran around 8000 years ago [in which] the rooms were positioned on one side of the courtyard and included living spaces, stores, and barns.”12 Historically, the courtyard house was the most widespread housing typology in Iranian cities and had “inward/ introvert” looking or

“outward/ extrovert” spatial organizations (Figure 1.3).13 In the past, the extrovert and introvert styles expanded throughout Iran simultaneously.14 These forms have developed in both villages and cities, but they found their distinct features in the more developed urban areas.

Fig 1.3. Inward-looking and outward-looking courtyard house orientation. © Drawings by author.

12 Ibid, 21. See also Mohammad K. Pirnia, Iranian Architectural Styles [Compiled by Gholamhossein Memarian, in Persian], (Tehran, Iran: Institute of Islamic Art Publication, 1990): 31. 13 Pirnia insists that the architectural buildings in Iran are generally of two spatial types, Introvert and Extrovert. See Ibid, 30-32. 14 “Introvert” on the hot arid zones and desert areas or forms on the slopes of the mountainous areas and “Extrovert” on the fertile fields of the North of Iran. Gholamhossein Memarian, Iranian Residential Architecture, “Extrovert” Type [In Persian], (Tehran, Iran: University of Science and Technology, 1992): 120.

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In Iran, courtyard houses differ primarily in size, number of rooms, construction quality, and in terms of decoration and ornaments. None of these characteristics were reflected in the external appearance of houses. Many houses had only one courtyard; however, this number varies, usually from one to three. The number of courtyards depended upon social, cultural, class, and religious factors.15 The typical courtyard house was one- or two-story and centered upon one or two courtyards.16 The number of stories was not necessarily a symbol of wealth.

Instead, the number of courtyards related to the wealth and class of families and thus was a symbol of wealth, since it necessitated the building of at least two separate courtyards. In major cities such as Shiraz and Yazd, there were many examples of multi-courtyard houses.

Many architecture historians in Iran discuss the organization and architectural configuration of courtyard houses. For example, Memarian describes courtyard houses as being a place of unity between diverse elements and spaces, a place for families’ gatherings and pleasure

(having water and greenery) and a place for air ventilation. He also portrays the courtyard as a provider of privacy and security for the comfort of the family.17 These scholars demonstrate that the courtyard mainly functioned as a dynamic social space where people gathered to socialize in an open, yet private living setting. The courtyard permitted outdoor activities while it provided a significant level of privacy and comfort for female members of the household.18 Importantly, women’s status and role within this domestic space in Iran was mainly idealized and romanticized by these scholars as being secure and private.

15 Memarian, Gholamhossein and Frank Brown, Op. Cit., 35. 16 For different typologies of courtyard hoses see: Pfeifer, Günter and Per Brauneck. Courtyard Houses: A Housing Typology. (Basel; Boston: Birkhäuser, 2007). 17 Memarian points out “Islam prescribes the roles of men and women in ways, which have a direct impact on architectural design.” Memarian, Gholamhossein and Frank Brown, Op. Cit., 26. 18 See also Pirnia, Mohammad K. Op. Cit., 31.

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Historically in Iran (like many other countries), women were not allowed free mobility in public spaces and were relegated to the private space of the house. Fatima Mernissi (1992) argues women seclusion in private spaces had a tendency in Islamic culture.19 Particularly before

Reza Shah’s modernization, there was a distinct division between women’s and men’s roles in the society of Iran mainly due to religious and cultural beliefs. Men’s primary roles were considered to exist outside their homes, in the public realm of work, commerce, civic engagement, and politics. Women’s roles, in contrast, were viewed primarily in terms of their domestic roles in interior spaces of the private house.20 Women were understood as private members of the imagined national community, were encouraged to spend most of their time inside their homes.

The outer walls of the courtyard house, as Memarian states, demarcates “the…limits of the property, the definition of a place of privacy for the family, the unification of spaces and elements in a house, the provision of a circulation element, the creation of a garden or cool place, and the promotion of ventilation.”21 Walls were built as a form of familial territory and hardly had an opening in the facades. External facades were mainly plain without any decoration facing the alleys and streets. They were built to a height that ensures the interior cannot be overlooked from the alleys and streets (Figure 2.3). In addition, by separating the private from the public, the walls prevented the flow of information, social status, and public attitudes. This gender segregation then reinforced, to use Daphne Spain’s (1992) term, “gender stratification” within families and within the larger society of Iran.

19 See Mernissi, Fatima. Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World, translated by Mary Jo Lakeland. (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1992) and also Beyond the Veil, Male—Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society (Rev. ed.). (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). 20 Abu-Lughod, Janet. “The Islamic City: Historic Myth, Islamic Essence, and Contemporary Relevance,” in Amirahmadi, H. & El-Shakhs, S. Urban Development in the Muslim World. (New Jersey: The Center for Urban Policy Research, 1993). 21 Gholamhossein Memarian and Frank Brown, Op. Cit., 22.

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Fig 2.3: A schematic drawing of the views from courtyard houses to an outside alley (and from an outside alley to a courtyard house). © Drawings by author.

Generally, in the courtyard houses in Iran, all spaces were set around a central yard, surrounded by rooms, without any openings to the outside. The courtyard space served as a private space for family gathering, sitting, eating, and children’s playing and provided many of the functions of the living room of the western houses. The rooms of the house were located in the periphery. The room’s windows mainly opened to the courtyard with almost total dependence for light and air circulation from the open spaces of the yard.22 Rooms typically have a rectangular form and were arranged along the edges of the house. Service rooms such as the kitchen, toilet facilities, and storage room were located in the corners. Private rooms were placed far away from the entrance and invisible from any gaze. In courtyard houses, the overall design and layout were characterized by a hierarchy of privacy from the public areas of the city toward semi-private corridors to private spaces of the courtyard. Since privacy is not an absolute but a relative concept (based on the culture), providing “enough and good” degrees of privacy was, therefore, relative and conditional.

I compare the concept of privacy in courtyard houses to an image of a woman’s veiling and interpret it as a form of a cultural veil. Both courtyard house and women were disciplined

22 Only in cities like Yazd the house had a number of openings called badgir ()

96 and expected to be invisible to those mahram men. Moreover, the courtyard architecture form symbolizes women’s veil metaphorically as the design of its components and spaces provide further privacy and “protection” of female versus male inhabitants. In other words, veil and courtyard house both provide visual and access privacy for women’s bodies. This veiling and segregation of women’s bodies had spatial and visual dimensions in the courtyard house.

Spatially, women were allocated to the indoor private spaces and men to the outdoor public spaces. The nature of society at the time dictated that all women spend almost all of their time at home. Women’s most outside activity limited to socializing among neighbors, relatives and kin, or contained within religious ritual.23 In terms of visual privacy, the courtyard’s shape and the lack of openings on its façades prevented outside views to the inside of the house and at the same time prevented views outside from within the household (Figure 3.3). An important effect of this was that female family members were “protected” from any outside (male) gaze and simultaneously were discouraged to look outside for fear of potentially sinning by ruining their female chastity.24

23 Moghadam, Valentine M. “Hidden from History? Women Workers in Modern Iran.” International Society for Iranian Studies (Taylor & Francis, Ltd, 2000): 386. Besides, Mary Hegland, a socio-cultural anthropologist, claims that one of the main reasons why traditional Iranian women accepted society’s definition of their role and preferred to stay at home is their fear to be critiqued, the “fear of disapproval” by their relatives and society, as any degree of activity outside of domestic spheres is not brought by women themselves, but allowed by men and the corresponding social control of the society. See Hegland, Mary E. “Public Role of Aliabad Women: The Public Private Dichotomy Transcended,” in Nikki Keddie, ed., Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender. (New Haven: Yale University Press, (1991)): 215-230. 24 Hills, Helen. “Architecture as Metaphor for the Body: The Case of Female Convents in Early Modern Italy,” in Gender & Architecture, edited by Louise Durning and Richard Wrigley, (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000): 78.

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Fig 3.3: Forogh Al Molk House in Shiraz, Iran. This figure illustrates a corner of andaruni. The inward orientation and tall walls prevented any visual connection between inside private spaces of the house and the outside public alleys. This house preserved as a part of cultural heritage of Shiraz. © Fars Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, Shiraz, Iran.

This prevention of a female visual gaze carried connotations of power and domination and created a subject-object relationship between men and women, as Jacques Lacan argues.25

Subjects (male strangers passing by in the alleys) could not gaze at objects (women in households). That is, contact was prevented between the powerful (superior) male gazer and the powerless (inferior) female gazee. This further created “otherness” between the household (the private) and the city (the public). These social and cultural factors in the courtyard house design created a hierarchy and ordering of spaces rooted in patriarchal conceptions of public/private and

25 See for example: Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis translated by Alan Sheridan (New York: Norton, 1978); and Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book I, Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953-1954, edited by Jacques-Alain Miller, translated by John Forrester (New York: Norton, 1988).

98 of gender relations. This patriarchal arrangement increased visual privacy, limited accessibility, and ordered gender relations.26 For all of these reasons - the spatial gendering and feminization of the courtyard house, the male gaze and female (self-)surveillance, the object and subject relationships, and women’s embodied experiences and limited mobility within and outside the courtyard house – women who inhabited these houses were very restricted in their usage of space and general mobility.

It is important to mention that, the demand for privacy expressed by the openings to the inside lead to an emphasize on beautifying the interior terrace and the courtyard interior façades.

Decorative features were used in order to create an attractive indoor space of garden with trees, water pool, and water fountain. The garden had both aesthetic and climatic purposes, being a cool space in the spring and summer.27 Moreover, if and when public gardens or parks existed, they were considered a male domain and largely inaccessible to women. The private courtyard with a garden, trees, pool, and fountain, therefore, served as a small private park for the household, a kind of feminized private park. The courtyard has thus been described and romanticized, by architecture historians scholars such as Memarian or Pirnia, as a kind of self- contained image of heaven, particularly in hot and dry regions in iran.28 It is important to highlight that the courtyard was the only space exposed to the natural elements in which women could socialize. Men, on the other hand, had access to multiple social settings in the city where they could convene. In addition, coffee shops, public markets, and other public settings provided daily opportunities for men to socialize. In this context, the inside spaces of the courtyard functioned as a threshold of tension where the yard becomes a stage, a viewing mechanism, and

26 While the argument that men deliberately used the home environment as a social control mechanism is debatable, there is no doubt that social and cultural restrictions meant that the home environment was the only social setting for women. 27 Memarian, Gholamhossein and Frank Brown, Op. Cit., 28. 28 Pirnia, Mohammad K. Op. Cit.

99 a more visible performance opportunity for female members of the household.29 The courtyard house was not as central to men’s social life given that men had access to public spaces; rather, the courtyard house was central to women’s social life within the boundaries of the house, and it was designed to limit women’s public mobility and “veil” women from public life.

Courtyard Houses, Social Hierarchies, Gendered Elements

Contrary to the exterior façade and walls, the main entrance door had decorations (Figure

4.3). Doors mediated the interaction between the family and others, separating the self/family from others (e.g., the neighborhood and the city). The entrance door was a medium that signified the beginning of the private spaces. Doors allowed the control of interaction between public, semi-public, and the private spaces.

Fig 4.3: The main entrance door has decoration. This house belonged to Hossein Namazi family and preserved as an architecture heritage in the city of Shiraz, Iran. © Fars Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, Shiraz, Iran.

29 Colomina, Beatriz and Jennifer Bloomer. Sexuality & Space. Vol. 1. (New York, N.Y: Princeton Architectural Press, 1992).

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Most courtyards had only one entrance door with two door knockers, one for men and the other for women. The men’s door knocker had a rectangular shape and the women’s door knocker had an empty cylinder shape (Figure 5.3). Even the gendered shapes of door knocker design reflects cultural ideas about gender: Masculinity is perceived as being stronger and more powerful (the rectangular shape) and femininity is perceived as softer, less powerful, and curvy

(the cylinder shape). In some houses, the female door knocker featured a curvy feminine hand with bracelets and the male door knocker had a more masculine hand shape. In addition, each door knocker made different sounds when one knocked the door. The feminine door knocker made higher-pitched sound and the masculine one created a deeper, lower-pitched, bass sound.

The gender dimensions of the door knockers either in shape or the sounds allowed household members to identify the gender of the visitors without opening the door. Generally, the socio- cultural restrictions on women forbade and considered it shameful if the voices of women were heard by male strangers (na-naharam). Therefore, if a woman in the household wanted to respond to a man behind the door, she needed to change her voice to make her voice more masculine. These gendered architectural elements reveal how gender segregation and division was institutionalized within the design of courtyard houses.

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Fig 5.3. Most courtyards had two door knockers, one for men and the other for women. The male door knocker had a rectangular shape and the female door knocker had an empty cylinder shape. © Photo taken in 2016 by author in Shiraz, Iran.

The entrance door connects the outside world to the inner space of the house through an intermediate filter area called dalan (corridors). The dalan, a 3-4-meter walkway passage, is usually covered and narrow and was designed as such to distinguish between the external public world and the internal private spaces of the house. The shapes of the dalan were twisted or bent, depending on the design. These non-straight shapes prevented any outside gaze or immediate viewing into the internal private spaces. The semi-private space of the dalan thus maintains the privacy of the family and avoids any immediate visual exposure and immediate access to the inner domestic spaces of the courtyard. If a visitor or guests come in, they normally wait for permission to be given before entering a house.

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In addition to the dalan, some houses had another space called the hashti (vestibule)

(Figure 6.3).30The hashti, which literally translates to “octagonal,” mainly had an octagonal shape; however, the square and rectangular shapes were common. Hashti was designed as a stopping point or a temporary reception room for guests. There were usually two or three niches, which provided a place for visitors to sit on. Hashti was designed as a response to balance the hospitality of the guests and the privacy of the family. In addition, spatial arrangements such as dalan and hashti provided more visual privacy and less access to the household. In houses without the dalan the hashti, the entrance door would be covered from inside with a curtain or similar cloth to maintain privacy. These degrees of access establish a hierarchical order in the plan which is a characteristic of the courtyard house in Iran. This hierarchy makes a journey to the courtyard begin with light and public to dark and semi-private, into the totally private light

(space of the yard) again.

Fig 6.3: The circled area is Hashti (vestibule) which literally translates to “octagonal.” It typically had an octagonal shape. From Manzel Anjavi House in Shiraz, Iran. © Fars Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, Shiraz, Iran.

30 At the entrances of all these houses, entrance hall (Hashti) and corridors (Dalan) make it impossible to immediately see the inner part of the house and courtyards are accessible through the hashti and dalan. See Memarian, Gholamhossein and Frank Brown, Op. Cit., 29. Moreover, in double courtyard houses, the hashti would give access to both courtyards.

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The simplicity of the traditional courtyard house was evident in its construction materials.

Historically, the courtyard houses were built of wooden roof beams and masonry materials such as coral rocks and mud. These construction materials utilized in a fashion which simultaneously exploits structural and thermal characteristics. The interior façade covered with a plaster of lime and sand. And depending on the wealth of the family there was plaster decoration on the ceilings of the rooms, particularly the guest rooms known as . Moreover, rooftops play a significant role in the design of courtyard houses. The roof had raised parapets and was accessible through a stair from the courtyard. The roof space was used for various purposes. They were usually a place for eating, living, and sleeping purposes during the evening and night hours in spring and summer months in hot climates of Iran. Besides, rooftops were particularly essential space in urban areas where large open yards did not exist and in lower-class neighbors where houses where smaller in compact neighborhoods. Related families usually lived in the same neighborhood (Mahalla) and their houses were attached to each other. This urban morphology created a homogeneous neighborhood in which houses were connected through rooftops.

As mentioned earlier, the number of courtyards depended on the wealth of the family in

Iran. Houses of the affluent, landowners and wealthy merchants had two courtyards: the

‘andaruni’ (the female quarter) and the ‘biruni’ (the male quarter).31 Figures 7.3 (a) and (b) show a house with two courtyards.

31 It has different spelling in English language, for example some literature spells them as the birooni and anderooni or andarūnī’ and bīrūnī.

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(a) (b)

Fig(s) 7.3 (a) and (b). (a)- Plan of a courtyard house with andaruni and biruni (1. Biruni 2. Andaruni 3. Servents’ quarter). And (b)- A three-dimensional model of a the same house. Forogh Al Molk House in Shiraz, Iran. This courtyard house has andaruni and biruni quarters. © Fars Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, Shiraz, Iran.

Biruni, which literally means ‘outside,’ was traditionally a male quarter situated close to the main entrance. Strange male visitors (na-mahram) would be entertained by the men of the household in the Biruni.32 Mainly biruni had a decorated talar (the reception room) where the head of household arranged his ceremonies in it (Figure 8.3 (a) and (b)). The head of the household was mainly the father who had considerable authority over his family through a patriarchal structure. In courtyards with andaruni and biruni, the outer courtyard or the biruni was designed to receive male visitors and individuals without interfering with the female’s life.

In the literature on the history of architecture in Iran, the idea behind this spatial separation is

32 Masoud, Amir Bani “Taamoli bar tadavom doganegi andarun va birun: faza dar memari maskooni modern iran,” (Investigating the Dichotomies of Andaruni and Biruni: Space in Modern Archietcure of Iran) in Memari va Farhang (Architecture and Culture): 9-11. Also see: Soltanzadeh, Hossein. “Sonatihaie Tarahi va Sokonat dar Khanehaie Daroongaraie Irani” (The Tradition of Design and Housing in Introvert Houses in Iran) in Negaresghi be Memari Khane (A look to Housing Architecture), Sale 7 shomare:23 (Year 7, no.23): 134-141.

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romanticized as the ‘andaruni’ give privacy and freedom of movement to women and their

bodies without being seen by male strangers.

(a) (b)

Fig(s) 8.3 (a) and (b). (a)-Interior decoration of talar with glass work. And (b)-An exterior view of talar from biruni. Forogh Al Molk House in Shiraz, Iran. © Fars Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, Shiraz, Iran.

The andaruni, literally means ‘inside,’ was the female and children quarter of the house.

Basically, andaruni was a feminized space where women were secluded from the public. As

andaruni provided enough privacy for female family members, women could socialize in this

space without having to wear the veil (hijab). However, when leaving this quarter or in case of

having women visitors come in, women were obliged to be fully covered.33 While female visitors

might on occasion be entertained in the talar in the biruni, they were more likely to be taken to

the andaruni. The transition between the andaruni and biruni can be termed as “intermediate

domain,”34 as the link between the two courtyards was designed based on the a bent entrance

33 They needed to cover their bodies with the chador and only reveal a small part of their faces 34 Rapoport, Amos. Op. Cit.,

106 principle. The bent shape provided intimacy, visual, and access control from one courtyard into the other.

The architecture of the andaruni consisted of one large room and several smaller multi- purpose rooms.35 The floor was covered with Persian carpets and rooms were furnished with traditional cushions and mattresses for sitting. Service areas such as kitchen, servant rooms, toilet, and a bath (if provided) were located in one wing of the andaruni. While historically people have lived in courtyard houses as extended families, each nuclear family maintained its own sleeping quarters within the andaruni. In small houses without separate courtyards for andaruni and biruni, houses had separate quarters around the same courtyard.

The binaries of andaruni-biruni, private-public, internal-external, hidden-manifest, and feminine-masculine was a common division in most courtyard houses which conjures up concepts of sexuality and reproduction. Many believe the patriarchal seclusion and segregation of female family members within the architecture of a courtyard house and its spatial feminization has its roots in the religion and culture of the Middle East and Iran. A closer examination, however, reveals in ancient Greece, specifically during the classical and Medieval periods, the courtyard houses existed as a major housing typology.36 Similar to the courtyard house in Iran, the Greek courtyard houses were inwardly oriented and rooms were opened into the central courtyard. In a typical Greek house:

35 Smaller rooms known as Gushvars (literally means earrings) 36 There are various narratives on Greek houses architecture and its relationship to women’s position within that architecture. Some scholars argue that women were restricted to female areas while others reject the idea that women in Greece had lived in the secluded area. For example, look at Wollstonecraft, M. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds. The Wollstonecraft Debate, Criticism (New York: Norton, 1988): 10. Or see the opposite view by Rousseau, J.J. “Letter to M. d’Alembert on the Theater,” in Politics and the Arts, trans. A.Bloom (Glencoe: Free Press, 1960): 48. Christoph Meiners used a term “oriental seclusion” and argues that “in its general conduct to the sex, and its laws concerning women, [the ] appeared much more closely allied to the Orientals.” See Meiners, Christoph. History of the Female Sex, vol.1, trans. F.Shoberl (London: H.Colburn, 1808): 260.

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the husband and the adolescent sons lived in their own rooms on the street side, the women of the family were housed in the back of the house or on the second floor, and spouses did not sleep in the same room. Following a common pattern, the rooms of the house were arranged around an inner courtyard that was not directly accessible from the outside.37

Therefore, the organization of Greek houses and their domestic spaces were indeed gendered.

Moreover, similar to the courtyard houses in Iran, Greek houses were divided into women’s and men’s quarters. The Greek domestic architecture had “the female rooms,

‘gynaikonitis’, and the male area, ‘andronitis’ […] the male quarters and their ‘andron’ — the male room, which was the actual room of festivities.”38 Women’s domestic activities occurred in

‘gynaikonitis,’ where women were visually unseen. Therefore, through the separation of genders, the Greek architecture assisted further “possibilities of control, the social hierarchies between members of the household [both] symbolically and physically.”39 The gender separation in classical Greek culture has helped Greek men to hold superior knowledge and power.

Furthermore, social gendered laws have restricted Greek women from public participation.

Kuhlmann mentions the mobility of Greek women were strictly controlled by the male members of the family. The head of the family “controlled the entrance door, which was usually the only access into the house … the house was to ensure the privacy of the woman.”40 For example, “if

Greek women wanted to leave the house in the daytime, they had to cover their heads”41 and she could go out only with the company of a male member of the household during certain times of the day.

37 Kuhlmann, Dörte. Gender Studies in Architecture: Space, Power and Difference, (New York: Routledge, 2013): 113. 38 Ibid, 114. 39 Ibid, 113-114. 40 Ibid, 113. 41 Ibid, 116.

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One interesting question to ask here is if any relationship exists between the etymologies of the Greek male quarters, the ‘andron,’ and the Iranian female quarters ‘andaruni.’ There is not a specific mention of this relation in the literature; however, one could argue that as courtyard houses traveled from Greece to Iran and the Middle East, the words could have traveled as well.

Therefore, considering only cultural and religious factors as the main reason for the seclusion of women in the traditional architecture of courtyard houses in the Middle East and Iran disregards the fact that women’s seclusion was institutionalized in the architecture of courtyard houses long before it reached the Middle East and Iran. However, it is possible that the adaptation of this housing typology as a favorable housing typology in Islamic Middle Eastern societies assisted and reinforced the separation and exclusion of women from public spaces.

The Emergence of Modern Housing in Iran

The history of modern architecture began in the West with modernist architects such as

Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut, and Mies van der Rohe. These pioneers combined aesthetic features with scientific designs and created meaningful modern architecture. Modern architecture introduced concepts such as the open plan, collective housing, rationalization in design, as well as efficiency and hygiene. Architects around the world quickly favored modern architecture, which tended to use reinforced concrete, steel, and glass, and was noticeable for its absence of stylistic motifs and decoration common in traditional architecture. Very soon, an entire generation of architects, planners, and state officials set modernism as their hallmark globally; state officials and European-trained architects in Iran were among this group. Both the state and modernist architects celebrated the arrival of modern architecture in Iran as a historical moment marking the country’s entry into the twentieth-century.

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Iran’s modern movement closely followed the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture

Moderne, (CIAM, or International Congresses of Modern Architecture), established in 1928.

CIAM’s modern housing manifestos had a direct influence on the design of modern housing in

Iran.42 The Iranian architecture journal Arshitikt (The Architect), for example, featured Gabriel

Guevrekian’s well-known architectural designs.43 Guevrekian worked as CIAM’s General

Secretary in an international housing exhibition in .44 Without a doubt, he was one of the key influences in the evolution of modern architecture in Iran during and after Reza Shah’s era.

In his publications, Guevrekian often referred to the benefits of modern housing in Europe and the possibilities of its application in Iran.45 His direct participation in western exhibitions and designs combined with his association with modern architecture leaders in Europe made him a role model for many professional architects in Iran.

Arshitikt regularly showcased modern housing in its pages. Published from 1946 to 1948 by the Society of Certified Iranian Architects, Arshitikt focused and published on the work of

European-trained Iranian architects during Reza Shah’s era.46 In the first issue of the journal, due to the political climate of the time, the journal’s editorials declared that Arshitikt was a technological and aesthetic publication, without any interest or involvement in the world of politics and political manifestations.47 It explained that the influences of western societies, their

42 For example, modernist architects such as Le Corbusier published several manifestos about modern housing in Europe. 43 Gabriel Guevrekian was an Iranian architect and designer and he worked in Iran from 1933 to 1937. 44 This exhibition was sponsored by an Austrian Werkbund in 1931. 45 Marefat, Mina. “Building to Power: Architecture of Tehran 1921-1941” (PhD Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988): 215. 46 “Anjuman-i Arshitiktha-i Irani aie Diplume” (Th society of Iranian Architects with Diploma), the society as well as the journal were initiated and led by Iranian architect Mohsen Forughi (1907–83). It is one of the few sources of information about architects active in the promotion of modern architecture in Iran. 47 Although one cannot separate architecture from politics. Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordar 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 1.

110 modern lifestyle, and their architecture revolutionized all aspects of Iranian life, and revealed the deficiencies and flaws of Iran’s traditional architecture.48 Arshitikt claimed that western influences gradually prepared the social context for fundamental changes in the development of modern architecture in Iran. It stated that the evolution of Iranian architecture was an outcome of societal evolution, transforming architecture into “a societal technique.”49 It referred as well to societal shifts in the usage of physical spaces of the house, and in the ways men and women interacted in modern public spaces. Arshitikt believed modern architecture could contribute to radical changes in the aesthetic, physical, and social fabric of Iran.

The image of the courtyard was less favored among European-trained Iranian architects.

These architects viewed courtyard houses as a non-idealistic place in which to live. In the first issue of Arshitikt, the journal’s editor Vartan Avanessian50 described the traditional courtyard house as an imperfect and inadequate form of housing. He pointed out that courtyard houses were built without any “proper” architectural plan or technical proficiency and advocated for modern architectural designs and planning. The state agreed with this as well: It began to designate residential districts with modern villa-style houses and apartments as ideal. Avanessian also claimed that Usta-Memars (master-builders, those who traditionally built housing in Iran) did not have sufficient knowledge to build housing units for people; furthermore, he argued, their designs were not efficient nor necessarily hygienic. Historically, Usta-Memars were well-trained in traditional arts and decoration techniques and had significant knowledge of geometry, mathematics, and construction. Nonetheless, Avanessian characterized their arts as an architecture full of chaos and anarchy.51 Influenced by the ideas of the modernist architect Adolf

48 Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p.3 49 Ibid, 4. 50 Vartan Avanessian born in 1896 and died in 1982. 51 Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, p.5

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Loos, and s expressed in his influential 1908 article “Ornament and Crime,” Avanessian praised the greatness and glory of a building as lying in its simplicity, not in its decoration. Similar to Le

Corbusier, he advocated for new forms of housing that considered dwellings as machines for living and minimized decoration). For example, Avanessian criticized the capital of columns

(pillars), plaster decorations, and design of ceilings as useless decorations in the traditional architecture of Iran. He also considered traditional decorations such as stucco carvings and ceiling framings unpopular and unnecessary.52 Additional modernist architects of the time such as Yerevan Boudaghian similarly argued that the beauty of decoration was in its simplicity and logic.53

As discussed in Chapter Two, with the advent of radical modernization processes of the built environment by Reza Shah in the 1920s, the urban fabric and housing typology began to change and took a totally new form in Iran. The new housing projects, designed according to modernist ideals, represented a radical departure from the traditional neighborhoods where families clustered in homogeneous communities (Mahalla) of courtyard houses. The new larger neighborhoods had more diverse urban public settings in comparison to traditional Mahalla. The state and local municipalities began to provide guidelines of, for example, setbacks and land use regulations, that modernist architects were asked to follow. For example, the Municipality of

Tehran (baladieh) published several articles and announcements in Ettelaat newspaper indicating that for new construction, builders were required to submit their architectural drawings to the

Municipality for official approval.54 This law led to a range of reactions from distinct social classes. For example, due to the cost of hiring professional architects, working-class families constructed their modern houses with the help of Usta-Memar or local builders who had only

52 Ibid, 29. 53 Ibid, 33. 54 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, 1307/ 1928, p.123.

112 partial knowledge about modern design and construction. Given the rapid urban transformations and housing relocations taking place during this time period (as discussed in Chapter Two),

Usta-Memars and other local builders were left with little time or resources to develop professional skills in modern design. In effect, the latter group’s partial knowledge of modern design and construction thus created an imperfect mimicry of modern architecture.55 Such practices led to a conflict between municipal officials and working-class families, and often times their houses were not approved by the local municipality. Between the increased price of lands and construction materials and the cost of having properly-finished façades, the costs of modernist housing construction was very expensive for these families. In several journal and magazine advertisements, local municipalities declared that houses that violated municipality rules about the beautification of exterior façades (especially if the house was located on a highly- valued street) would not be granted a title deed. Local municipalities clearly stated that all houses needed to follow instructions for the beautification and adornment of façades and that otherwise, the state had the right to demolish the building.56 These laws and proclamations further marginalized working-class families, pushing them to build in less desirable locations on the city’s outskirt and leaving them with inadequate resources to build according to the newly- legislated modern standards in design and construction.

These regulations were part and parcel of the modern state’s strategy to visibly frame and present Iran to outsiders as a modern nation. Yet modern housing was a liminal space for many low-income working-class families. On one hand, the state and modernist architects in Iran proposed modern houses as a path to progress for the emergent modern nation. On the other

55 Bhabha, Homi. “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse.” In The Location of Culture, (New York: Routledge, 1994): 85-92. 56 The municipality Lawyer, Advertisement, “Ealan, Nahid (Venus), Mehr 1306/ 23 September 1927, no. 24, p.10.

113 hand, these new laws and regulations marginalized people based on their social class, placing them in a liminal space with chaotic conditions.

In contrast to working-class families, urban upper-class families generally benefited from these architectural transformations. Figure 9.3 illustrates a villa-style modern house designed by

Mohsen Furughi.57 This three-story free-standing modern house located in the middle of a garden. It has identifiable designed rooms such as two living rooms, a dining room, a bar room, an office, bedrooms, a kitchen, and a greenhouse. An asymmetrical plan was common for modern houses in Iran. These design principles were more affiliated with “modern Bauhaus movement than to the classical Beaux-Arts.”58 The building material included concrete, iron beams, cement, and glass. The application of concrete as the main construction material provided more opportunities to Furughi to use the circular form in the plan. He also designed semi-circular balconies, cylindrical stairwells, and a semi-circular living room. Multiple windows in the curved wall created more visual breaks between inside and outside spaces. While many urban middle-class and elite families appreciated and welcomed modern houses, the inequalities in the land location, the design phase, the construction materials (let alone modern furniture) led to some criticism within some communities.

57 Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p.218-219 58 Karimi, Pamela. Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran (Oxon: Routledge, 2013): 6.

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Fig 9.3: A villa-style modern house designed by European trained architect Mohsen Furughi. Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p.218-219. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Library, Tehran.

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Indeed, even as some Iranians embraced modern houses, this new housing design was also met with criticism. An article in Arshitikt, for example, highlighted that the modern houses were not only unable to solve the problems associated with traditional courtyard houses, they also created more problems for people.59 An architect and planner, Iraj Moshiri, stated that superficial, incomplete, and blind mimicry60 and adaptation of western housing models have created an unsatisfactory condition in many cities. He believed climate conditions and environmental characteristics of Iran, as well as the cultural and social factors of Iranian lifestyles, made modern housing incompatible and dissenting for many people. Moshiri basically argued that modern houses cannot be adopted and become a preferred style by any society without properly reconfiguring the design to meet local conditions, needs, and preferences.

In another article titled “Our Houses,” F. Sepahi asserted the dissatisfaction of people and residents made clear that the simulation and mimicry of European modern architecture

(particularly form European architecture journals) was a failure in Iran.61 One critical point

Sepahi made was the lack of proper urban spaces for women in modern design in comparison to courtyards. He stated as Iranian cities lack enough national gardens and public promenades like

European cities, the citizens, and therefore women suffer from the lack of places for socialization and leisure. He declared, building houses with garden, however, can balance these lacks, however, many could not afford villa-style houses, and that was the reason they lived in multi- story apartments. He demonstrated this have made many women to be trapped in modern apartments; it has minimized their social interactions and further marginalized them. Basically,

59 Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1326/ June 1947, vol. 1, no. 4, P.118 60 Walter Benjamin describes mimicry as an act of imitation that would result in a similarity, not pure actuality (similar to language translation). 61 Arshitikt (The Architect), Bahman 1326/ January 1948, vol. 1, no. 5, p .171. And see Arshitikt (The Architect), Mordad 1325/ July 1946, vol. 1, no. 1, PP. 22-23

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Sepahi has looked for a conceptual model to create more urban freedom for women. One can argue that his criticism involved a search for a possible modern vernacular.

Based on the latter examples, metaphorically, the meaning and function of architectural spaces and elements changed in modern housing design. In modern villa-style houses, many families extend the ideas of andaruni-biruni through locating most public spaces on the first floor and the private spaces on the second floor. Doors which defined the territory and privacy of the extended families in courtyard houses became definer and separator of nuclear family activities in modern houses.62 The door knockers with their gender characteristics gave their place to new doorbells. Doors functioned as the gate that regulated the entrance and/or exit. They marked the inclusion and/or exclusion of the nuclear modern family. That is, the door and its ability to enclose the nuclear family’s life signified a new meaning of privacy to families and their spaces. For example, in villa-style houses, instead of the hashti (vestibule), in many cases, the spaces between the yard/garage door and the building door, functioned as the catalyzer for the privacy of access and view.63

Yet privacy gained new meaning as people relocated to modern houses. Larger extrovert horizontal windows as a visual manifestation of modern houses challenged the idea of privacy and the meaning of the private spaces, effectively reducing the privacy of the household (Figure

10.3). Windows provided the household a view to the outside world. Some families hung thick curtains on the windows to maintain their privacy. And, as discussed in Chapter Two, whereas

62 Bourdieu states: “The outside world begins at the front door.” See Bourdieu, Pierre. Algeria 1960. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1979): 89. 63 In order to create visual privacy in the modern houses, conservative families changed the design of their houses. For example, they constructed walls around the yard to further recreate the visual separation that existed in the courtyard house. Such efforts reflect people’s desire to maintain their privacy as in earlier courtyard houses.

117 previously rooftops in courtyard houses were an extension of private spaces – a place for women to socialize and a seasonal living and sleeping quarter – they lost this meaning and function in modern houses. Particularly in multi-story apartments, rooftops became a semi-public shared space among residents.

Fig 10.3: Larger extrovert horizontal windows were one of the visual manifestation of modern houses. Arshitikt (The Architect), Bahman 1326/ January 1948, vol. 1, no. 5, p. 164. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Library, Tehran.

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In modern houses, families would sleep on balconies (baharkhab) instead of on rooftops during the summer.64 Balconies connected the private spaces of the house to the public spaces of the street and acted as a medium to provide privacy. In adding large balconies to the housing units, more settings for social interaction among neighbors were created and they also served as a bridge between the private and public; in this context, households members could observe the public from their balconies. In essence, this allowed women to negotiate the direction of the gaze, from being gazed upon to having the freedom to gaze upon the outside, public world. This, among many other factors, resulted in a shift in women’s everyday, gendered performance and forms of expression, from one that was conservative to one secular and outward-oriented in nature. Previously, in courtyard houses, women were encouraged to wear the veil while they were in the courtyard; however, in modern houses they were allowed to dress in western clothes and wear makeup as a celebration of their beauty and sexuality. In an advertisement about women’s clothing in Mehregan magazine, the author suggested that women needed to wear loose clothing in the house.65 Such arguments were in strong contradiction to women’s privacy, veiling, and performances in the courtyard house. This statement did not mean that women’s new choice of clothing in private spaces were celebrated in all modern houses, as in many cases, these activities were allowed as long as they took place only in the company of immediate family members and behind thick curtains that divided the inside from the outside. Many conservative families also covered their balconies with thick curtains so as not to allowed passersby (whether neighbors, strangers or state officials) to see inside their private dwellings.

64 Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p .172 65 Mehregan, Ordibehesht 1315/ May 1936, no.4, on back cover of the magazine.

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Women’s Role in her Modern Domicile

The relationship between the design of the house and the emancipation of women was always closely related to Reza Shah’s modernization project. At the most basic level, state officials proclaimed that courtyard houses were spaces that prevented the progress and emancipation of women. Whenever a newspaper or magazine article addressed the topic of women’s emancipation, they associated women’s emancipation with the restrictive environment of the courtyard.66 State officials and other elites argued that women’s domain was not or should no longer be the private, domestic space but rather the public domain. Women were encouraged to participate in public social life.

It is important to mention that there was a parallel representation of the traditional/ modern binary in discourses of modern housing and women’s emancipation. Particularly as the courtyard houses and traditional Iranian women “both were subject to a cult of rationalization, and both were often judged against their modern western counterparts.”67 The former were portrayed as “backward” entities belonging to the past whereas the latter were portrayed as the progressive, emancipated image of the future. In both cases, modernization was seen as bringing new opportunities to women and to society at large, through the expansion of ideologies of liberalism, inclusion, and emancipation. By the late 1920s, several magazines and newspapers supervised primarily by the state promoted and demanded (among others) the social emancipation of women. They advocated for women’s access to education, the workforce, and other public spaces as a way to emancipate them. Reza Shah’s mandatory Unveiling Act of 1936

(which I discuss at length in Chapter Four), combined with his sponsorship of women’s movements, to some extent weakened traditional public-private boundaries that subordinated

66 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, 1314/ 1936, p.266. 67 Karimi, Pamela. Op. Cit., 59.

120 women. Women’s new lives were represented as in strong opposition to the traditional lives and experiences of women.68 Increasingly women were seen as holding modern gender roles, values, and norms.

Despite modernist architects’ efforts to redefine the spatial boundaries between the private and the public, and despite the state’s effort to restructure and desegregate gendered public and private spaces, these gendered dichotomies continued to be vital in Iranian discourses of modernity.69 For starters, women’s emancipation was never fully or clearly defined and understood, a topic I elaborate on in Chapter Four. Similarly, Iranian modernist architects’ contradictory statements on women’s roles in the house revealed their limitations on providing a clear definition regarding women’s emancipation. For example, a Radio Tehran speech manuscript published in Arshitikt, titled “Satisfaction with the Home,” claimed that the city of

Tehran and its surrounding were nothing except empty plots before the construction of modern houses in the early 1920s.70 The speech suggests that the beauty and density of urban spaces filled with modern houses were pleasing to spectators. It proposed that population growth could strengthen the housing market and would fill empty plots in suburbs. It stated that “the youth effort and particularly women [would] add population to Tehran and other cities of Iran.”71

Connecting women’s reproductive rights to Iranian urbanization and modernization illustrates

68 For example, see articles in Alam-e Nesvan (Women’s World), Jahani Zan (Women’s World), Mehregan and Nahid (Venus). 69 However, Arshitikt (The Architect), Aban 1325/ October 1946, vol. 1, no. 2, p.41 and p.83. A photography advertisement in Arshitikt journal, titled “Gentlemen: Engineers and Architects,” illustrated a mother taking care of her child while a man is photographing them. The illustration and title in an architecture journal, a woman busy with her motherhood duties, while a man taking their photos illustrates how in the view of the architecture association of Iran, women were still mandating to stay in domestic spaces and participate in motherhood responsibilities. It demonstrated how a woman was still belonged to the private spaces while a man belonged to public life and scientific engineering jobs. 70 Bazargan, M. “Rizayat az khanah (Satisfaction with the Home),” Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, pp. 198–200. 71 Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p.198.

121 how in the discourse of women’s modernization and emancipation relied upon an image of women as biological and social reproducers, and in their traditional gender roles, by a number of urban planners and architects. Such statements set a contradictory stage for imagining the emancipated working women as portrayed by European-trained architects and state officials in their propaganda.

During this period in Iran, the modern house became the center of married couples’ lives, particularly urban middle-class couples; it became their own space as a nuclear family.72

Historically, couples would marry through an arranged marriage.73 The groom’s family provided the housing, the bride’s family provided the furniture.74 Typically brides were proud to give female guests tours of their homes and show them the furniture and kitchen appliances they received (normally from their parents) for their married life. With the modern house, women were socialized to care about interior design and home decoration even more. Through reading western interior design magazines and visiting other women’s houses, brides were cultivated to attend to their home interior and maintain their fashion; this became part of their new modern identities. The interior design of the house reflected the identity and socioeconomic status of the family. For example, urban middle-class families typically had a glass-fronted cabinet in which they displayed their antique pieces such as silver, china cups, and bronze dishes. In this way, women exhibited their families’ socio-economic status through interior decoration.

These new societal expectations of domesticity and women’s roles were perceived in a range of ways by distinct social groups during this era. In an article titled “Domesticity is

72 The modern housing was significance even for young unmarried couples, who were encouraged by their families to invest in buying houses. 73 The marriage law of 1931 mandated registration of marriage and divorce in state’s civil registries and families. See Camron Michael Amin, The Making of the Modern Iranian Woman: Gender, State Policy, and Popular Culture, 1865-1946 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002): 110. 74 This tradition differs in different cities of Iran.

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Women’s Honor” in Majalleh-e Jamiyat-e Nesvan va Vatankhwah-e Iran (Magazine of the

Society of Iranian Women and Patriots), Fakhr Afaq Parsa, a women’s rights advocate, criticized the modern training of young girls and women in Iran.75 In particular, she criticized how Iranian families had begun to concentrate on girls’ education, clothing, and fashion, and on teaching them other languages such as French and English. She advocated for families to teach their young girls and women domestic training (similar to western domestic training) and skills and values of Iranian motherhood and wifehood, as being a good wife and mother was perceived as women’s honor.76

Women as Active Users of Modern Houses

Generally, the state and modernist Iranian architects imagined families and women as

“passive consumers” who would help contribute to the modern progress of the nation by living in modern houses. However, moving into modern houses was not enough to produce modern subjects and identities on its own; rather, women’s (and men’s) adaption to modern houses required a massive cultural transformation, including in education, architecture and planning, and everyday life. Women, in particular, were faced with negotiating their ambivalent position in the modernization process: They were seen as modern symbols of progress yet also as backward agents of tradition.77 Whereas urban middle-class women more readily adapted to modern

75 Parsa, Fakhr Afaq. “Domesticity is Women’s Honor,” Zinate Zan Khane-dari Ast in Majalleh-e Jam_iyat-e Nesvan va Vatankhwah-e Iran (Magazine of the Society of Iranian Women and Patriots), no 5, pp. 45-48 (These domestic training was initially evident among urban middle-class families). 76 The radical opposition to domestic ideals adopted by second-wave feminism in the wake of Betty Friedan’s work The Feminine Mystique. See Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997). 77 This idea also has been discussed by Judy Giles in her The Parlour and the Suburb. Domestic Identities, Class, Femininity and Modernity, (London: Berg, 2004): 22.

123 transformations, working class, peasant, and religious women were less able to due to their limited economic resources, religious beliefs, and/or the patriarchal culture of their families.

Despite these tensions, women’s agency and their views of modern life were vital in shaping and reshaping modern houses in Iran. Originally there was no input from women in the design of the modern houses due to the substantial gap between the state, Iranian modernist architects, and women and their families. With the promotion of the nuclear family instead of extended family, and the redefinition of relationships between women and men within the household, new ways of organizing and using domestic spaces were introduced. As active users, women transformed the standardized modern houses into personalized spaces the combined traditional and modern elements. In contrast to modernist architects’ original design assumptions, women as primary house users would separate, order, and label spaces according to their own knowledge and needs. Based on their social class and status, women introduced various changes to the spaces and reformed several aspects of their modern houses. Most modern houses had a similar designation of spaces: a place for socialization, a number of bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, and a bathroom. Many articles and illustrations emphasized the design of the modern kitchen as a necessary space for women. They proposed readymade kitchens in the United States and Europe as a suitable prototype (Figure 11.3).

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Fig 11.3. An American modern woman in a modern kitchen. Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p.205. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Library, Tehran.

For example, in an article called “Kitchen and Dining Area,” the architecture of the kitchen and dining area described as important aspects of modern housing.78 The article quotes

Le Corbusier: “the kitchen should be as clean as a modern laboratory and furnished with the

78 Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p.204.

125 latest equipment of the modern world.”79 The author stated that modern kitchens were a necessity of modern housing and domestic life in Iran. In another example, “Kitchen Number

298,” a kitchen prototype in the French magazine Homme et architecture, was considered the ideal kitchen design for Iranian women’s domestic workplace (Figure 12.3).80

Fig 12.3: A modern kitchen called “Kitchen Number 298,” proposed as a prototype for Iranian modern houses. Arshitikt (The Architect), Tir 1327/ June 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p.204. © Courtesy of the Library of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Library, Tehran.

However, even with the introduction of these modern kitchens in the design of modern houses, Iranian women did not limit their domestic duties to the space of the kitchen. With the exception of elite and upper-class families who had servants, women who used their kitchens did not view them as the sole space for food preparation. Rather, they would extend their kitchen

79 Ibid. 80 Ibid, 205.

126 activities to other spaces in the house.81 For example, they would sit in the living room and sort rice or dice vegetables. They washed clothes in the bathroom, even though the modern bathroom was seen as a space for hygiene for the modern, healthy family. They would fill the bathroom basins with water and soap and washed clothes there. Washing clothes in the modern bathroom was similar to how many women laundered their clothes near the pool in courtyard houses.82

Women’s daily activities continually cross the boundaries that the modernist architects projected in the design as central to modern housing. Through these practices, women redefined the meanings and limits of modern spaces.

One can argue, women’s role in negotiating the modern house and their active role in reshaping the spaces began even before families enter the modern houses. Several articles in

Arshitikt indicated the superiority of modern houses, made women prepare for a move. For example, urban middle-class families started to order and buy western-style furniture before the actual move. While low-income families fixed, polished, or repainted their old belongings. Many elite and urban middle-class families considered modern housing superior to courtyard houses and appreciated modern desegregated spaces and the freedom of movements for women in the modern design. However, even this group have not accepted the modern housing in a passive way. A women’s magazine Zaban-e Zanan (Women’s Voice) published a series of articles titled

Zendegie Man (My Life), the female author provided descriptions and ideas about modern living, modern decoration, and modern lifestyle. She described her new life in a modern house and the challenges she faced while looking for an appropriate modern house plan.83 She described how

81 Afghani, Ali Mohammad. Shohare Ahoo Khanoom (Mrs.Ahoo’s Husband), (Tehran: Amirkabir: 1340/1962): 255. 82 Moreover, the traditional courtyard house design was never completely absent from the modern house. Several pages of Arshitikt journal presented modern houses with interior designs with a hybrid style of interior design. Many families still used mattress and cushions to furnish their living rooms. 83 Zaban-e Zanan (Women’s Voice), “Zendegie Man,” (My Life), no. 8, (December 1944): 31.

127 she found the European modern house plans as not completely suitable and fitting to Iranian culture and lifestyle (except as modern houses were more durable and had more compact area).

She suggested to readers to consider a modern kitchen and indoor bathrooms, and a separate bedroom for couples while building their house. The author mentioned that the interior design of her house is based on Louie the Fourteenth interior design (Figure 13.3). She used two primary colors of gray and pale pink for the furniture and wall paintings. She described the ways she matched the colors and how her design is modern and simple without any unnecessary decorations. The use of Persian carpets in her design helped her to combine and mix a Persian taste and culture with European elements. To privatize the living room space, she suggested that readers use personal belongings in their decorations (similar to what she did, hanging the picture of herself, her children, her father-in-law, and her husband on the wall). In contrast to the previous designs of the living rooms in courtyard houses and the separation and veiling of women even in andaruni quarters, state modernization “unveiled” the living room, allowing an unveiled woman to hang her picture as a decorative element in a living room exposed to the gaze of the male guests. In another issue of the journal, the same author disclosed and shared a photo of her bedroom and provided interior design tips (Figure 14.3). Particularly as she emphasized,

“I cannot express how happy we are with our little family and how this lifestyle is sweet and satisfying.”84 Unveiling the most intimate private space of the nuclear family reveals how the meaning and definition of privacy transformed in modern houses during this era. The promotion of nuclear family lifestyle by the state, the European-trained modernist architects, and through various propaganda in the magazines, all reveal the shifts in interior design and spatial culture in the society of Iran.

84 Ibid.

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Fig 13.3. In this illustration a female author provided descriptions and ideas about modern decoration and modern lifestyle. She considered this design to be based on Louie the Fourteenth interior design. Zaban-e Zanan (Women’s Voice), “Zendegie Man,” (My Life), no. 8 (December 1944). © MEDOC, University of Chicago.

Fig 14.3. In this illustration a female author described the interior design of her bedroom. Zaban- e Zanan (Women’s Voice), “Zendegie Man,” (My Life), no. 8 (December 1944). © MEDOC, University of Chicago.

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The many changes that women introduced to their houses allowed modern housing to become physically integrated with already-existing Iranian cultural practices; a hybrid modernization process that Arjun Appadurai refers to as practices or “techniques for the spatial production of locality.”85 In this way, the modern houses, the organization of their spaces, and the style of their furniture were all central to the representation of the self in relocation from the courtyard to modern houses. These changes were visible signs that conveyed to others (both the world and the state) the active role of women (and men) in shaping and reshaping the modernization of their housing in particular, and their cities at large. People had the ability to transform plans, projects, spaces, and images and their agency provideed an alternative view to those that consider the architecture of the houses and the cities as ready-made entities. The active role of women, however, is not to say that they have not redomesticized from one housing typology to another. Since women’s preliminary role were still perceived and defined based on traditional gender roles and values.

Conclusion: Redomestication and Women’s Resistance

This chapter addresses the parallel processes of Iran’s modernization of the built environment and Iranian women’s emancipation; processes that centrally relied on binaries of modern/traditional, East/West, and male/female to maintain their support. In addressing the transition from the courtyard house to the modern house, I have illustrated how Iran’s modernity project created a liminal space for the society of Iran to become modern or to maintain tradition.

Neither the modernist architects nor the state consulted with people (especially women) before introducing their designs. Women of different social classes negotiated and resisted the modern

85 Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996): 180.

130 design of the spaces allocated to them primarily in a top-down manner by the state and modernist architects. Women’s reappropriation of household space can be understood as their form of adaption, their reappropriation, and sometimes their everyday forms of resistance to modern houses and design, and to modernization more generally. Rather than being passive consumers of modern housing, women were active users by participating in the formation of their household space and by negotiating patterns and practices in the new space. They did not entirely embrace modern rational design, including modern definitions of their living spaces, but rather adapted these spaces to the local context and to their needs and desires. They shaped and reshaped various spaces of the house and reintroduced plurality and diversity into these spaces.

Women’s active roles in reshaping their modern homes also demonstrates how people in

Iran often had distinct desires and understandings of their culture and identity compared to those proposed in a top-down fashion by modernist architects and the state. So-called local, cultural identities were and continue to be constructed in comparisons and contrasts through time and space. Through time, modern houses were compared to previous courtyard houses, and through space, they were compared to western modern architecture. In this sense, as examples in this chapter illustrate, the modern house is a site of constant negotiation of the past and the present by different agents, with different powers, capacities, and conceptions of the house. Women’s performance in the modern house was thus a hybrid mixture of resistance, acceptance, and appropriation that cannot be dictated by a political power in a top-down manner.

To conclude, the representation of traditional gender roles still exists in the design of most domestic spaces. In particular, ideas about Iranian womanhood continue to be explicitly and implicitly contested within processes of modernization, gender (de)segregation, and patriarchal ideologies. The social norms and roles that are embedded in the design of houses

131 maintain and help (re)produce these power inequalities. It is thus important to consider how architectural design rests upon assumptions about gender roles and identities, and to consider architectural change as an important component of restructuring gender relations and domestic life and in producing a more equal or just built environment.

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Chapter Four: Negotiating Space: Women’s Embodied Experiences of Western-oriented

Modernization

Introduction:

This chapter is about sovereignty, state modernization policy, and gender in Iran; specifically, it addresses how the Iranian state in the early to mid-twentieth-century, during the first Pahlavi period (1925-1941), facilitated a “development” process by which ideas about women, gendered notions of embodiment, and beauty were central to the state project to modernize Iran. This interdisciplinary historiography of gendered struggles over sovereignty reveals how strategies of “westernization” were utilized within the state, effectively teaching women to become more modern by wearing western clothing and make-up as a way to modernize themselves, their families, and their nation. While not an unusual story (this is, after all, a common tale of European modern colonization), it is unique in how central gender became to Reza Shah’s self-fashioned version of modernization, a radical project contributed to a very clear visual manifestation of Iran as a “modern nation.” In many ways Reza Shah’s state viewed themselves as the “supreme” protector of women. They forced the closing of existing autonomous women’s organizations and groups, and became the primary voice for women. They demanded of women, including women of all social classes in both rural and urban areas, to

“free” themselves and act more like their western sisters and to honorably represent the “new”

Iranian nation. In reality, their efforts were based on an assumption that Iranian women from all walks of life faced the same kinds of oppression as western women and/or should be more like their “liberated” western sisters,1 an idea promoted through campaigns focused on Western-

1 For more information, see: Grewal, Inderpal and Caren Kaplan, in their Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994) and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Under western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial

133 oriented emancipation, values, and ideas. These ideas were found in official documents, photographs, newspapers and magazines of the time period.

This chapter addresses the disciplining of women’s lives and bodies, including the forced unveiling of Iranian women, and analyze how women of distinct backgrounds negotiated the modernizing state’s disciplinary effects on gender norms, identities, and gender-segregated spaces. It highlights, to what extent did women (of specific backgrounds, which I examine more at length in this chapter) actually experience “empowerment” or collective social emancipation as a result of this historically-unprecedented modernization agenda? How did they face persistent or new inequalities during this transformative period? How did this modernization project contribute to “desegregating, deracializing, and declassing” the built environment? Finally, how did women utilize, negotiate, appropriate, forge, and/or resist the imposition of the “modern” desegregated, deracialized, and declassified built environment?

From A Multicultural Traditional Society to a Monocultural Modern Nation

Reza Shah implemented massive urban and architectural modernization reforms in various parts of Iran, but he recognized that the modernization of the built environment was not enough, particularly if Iranians continued to wear (and thus represent) their tribal, ethnic, and/or local clothing. To this end, the state introduced massive socio-cultural reforms aimed at changing dress codes and fashion. Reza Shah first introduced a in the Iranian Army, to unite different sections of the army through their usage of a single uniform.2 As soldiers came from

discourses.” Boundary 2 (Duke University Press, 12/13 (3), 1984): 335. These scholars posit postcolonial and transnational feminist theory as their critique of modernity and modernization. 2 As a military man, Reza Shah centralized and dedicated the first few years of his reign on the creation of a central government, a strong army, and a loyal police force. The state’s nationalist viewpoints tried to extend its centralized army and administrative bureaucracy to support the necessary infrastructures which

134 various ethnic communities and provinces, establishing a dress code helped erase or make invisible ethnic and regional differences and created a stronger notion of nationalism within the

Army. This new, more allied army then fought, subjugated, relocated, and resettled different tribes, ethnic communities, and provincial magnates in Iran “to abandon their nomadic habits and opt for a more settled, agricultural way of life.”3 Bayat critics the tribal reform and argues:

(Reza Shah) assumed the tribes to be a homogeneous entity, engaged in a fixed and eternal conflict with any sort of central authority, an entity with no particular interest and motive of its own, but acting and behaving at the enticement of this or that foreign power. In fact of the tremendously diverse and varied elements comprising the tribal life of Iran, each had its own distinct historical, political and social characteristics and tended to have its own particular approach to what was going on in its environs at the time.4 The tribal reforms resulted in the confrontation between the tribes and Reza Shah’s army in so many ways.

In the same vein as the Army dress code policy, in 1927, Reza Shah called for the modification of men’s outfits; men being thus far the most frequent users of newly-constructed modern public spaces. The state’s decision to modify the male dress code in public spaces which men (individual citizens and state proxies) were subjected to the law (initially it was a policy), was met with various reactions by Iranian men and women. For example, a 1927 article in Nahid

Magazine describes Iran as a heterogeneous diverse country with multiple tribes and ethnic populations. The author denounces Iranian heterogeneity by critiquing territorial cultures, vernacular traditions, as well as local customs. He proposes that it would be a great achievement

were needed for achieving modernity. See also Katouzian, Homa. The Political Economy of Modem Iran Despotism and Pseudo-modernism, 1926-1979. (New York: New York University Press, 1982): 108. 3 Bayat, Kaveh. “Riza Shah and the Tribes: An overview” in The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921-1941, ed. Stephanie Cronin, (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003): 224. For further discussion on ethnic diversity in Iran, read PART V: The Tribes in the same book. 4 Bayat, Kaveh. Op. Cit., 225.

135 if Reza Shah homogenizes the country by an order of a unified dress code for the entire male population all over Iran’s geographical spectrum from South to North and East to West.5 This author and other similarly “enlightened” male leaders and elite agreed that creating a unified dress would solve the ethnic and tribal conflict and would consolidate Iran as a united country.

They neglectfully ignored and rejected the heterogeneity of Iranian populations in favor of promoting the new, seemingly unified nation (Figure 1.4).

Fig 1.4. Iran-e Emruz (Today’s Iran), Tir 1319/ June 1940, no.4, pp.24-29. © MEDOC, University of Chicago.

In contrast, a different male author, another time in Nahid Magazine described the modernization reforms in ironic terms (he did not name it as modernization but as Farangi

5 Monshibashi, N. “Mamlekate Shahi (The kingdom country),” Nahid (Venus), Tir 1306/ 23 July 1927, no. 7, pp.1-3.

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(European)).6 He stated that the Farangi is pervasive and unstoppable. He warned that if Iranian society allow Farangi to enter their country and culture it would affect all aspects of everyone’s life, as it did in Japan or Afghanistan. He further proposed to the readers that the Farangi would eventually influence Iranian young boys to play sports and, if this is not stopped, then young

Iranian girls would begin to jump-rope (Jastak-Jastak). The author emphasized that all of these activities were seen as inappropriate in local culture and were forbidden only thirty years earlier.

Despite criticisms, in 1927 Reza Shah issued a law forcing all men to wear western clothing, European shoes, and .7 All Iranian men were obligated to alter their traditional hats or with the new Pahlavi . Two years later, in March 1929, men were forbidden to wear traditional clothing such as the cassock, cloak, and sheath. Instead, they had to wear suits, coats, and the Pahlavi Hat.8 In June 1935, the Parliament ratified and enforced a new law and replaced the required Pahlavi Hat with the newly-required Shapoo Hat, and men also had to wear “European leather shoes” instead of Iranian shoes such as Giva, Malaki, and Karoq (kinds of cloth slippers and hide sandals).

Particularly after his visit to Turkey in 1934, Reza Shah became aware of the insufficiency of the men’s dress reform in modernizing the nation. Specifically, this reform was not enough to restructure and desegregate gender relations in neatly-constructed public spaces.9

Impressed by what he viewed as successful modernization reforms in Turkey, Reza Shah

6 Cherk Tab, “Boro Saboun Mal (Run along),” Nahid (Venus), Shahrivar 1306/ 10 September 1927, no. 20, pp.3-7. 7 The changes in the male population dress had been passed as a law during Reza Shad reign in Day 1307/ 27 December 1928. 8 The exception of male dress code had been made for religion leaders, clergies, and those who had Judicial or administrative positions. 9 Reza Shah clearly expresses his feeling as he constantly thinks how to dismiss the veil since he visited Turkey and saw Turkish women who put Chador and Pitche aside and work hands in hand and shoulder by shoulder with their male counterparts. For more information, see Makki, Hossein. Tarikh-i Bistsala-yi Iran (The History of Twenty Years), (Tehran: Elmi, 1995, vol. 3): 157.

137 recognized that Iran’s modernization project would remain incomplete without an equivalent set of reforms for women. The state then defined what was considered modern in relation to gender and which categories of women were to be targeted. Reza Shah mainly pointed to women’s social participation and their integration into social life as the hallmark and symbol of modernity and as an essential need of an Iranian nation. Upon modernization of urban public spaces, the state opened up the public sphere to women to provided them an opportunity to educate themselves and strengthen the image of modern national identity.

Moreover, in identifying obstacles to women’s modern participation in public life, Reza

Shah viewed women’s dress as the main barrier to their more “equal” participation and gendered integration into modern public life. The state thus reframed traditional women’s dress, particularly the black Chador (veil) and Pitche (face veil). Rather than viewing the veil as a

“piece of clothing that protects women from the gaze of men, [and demonstrates] the proper mode of interaction between the sexes, which aims at minimizing contact between unrelated men and women and has visual, acoustic, and behavioral dimensions,”10 for the first Pahlavi state, the veil signified an apparatus which restricted women’s individuality and mobility and consequently limited their access to knowledge and education. In other words, the veil signified a traditional form of “gender stratification”11 that Reza Shah wished to overcome.

10 Chehabi, H.E. “Expanding Agendas for the ‘new’ Iranian Woman: Family Law, Work, and Unveiling.” in The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921-1941, ed. Stephanie Cronin, (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003): 193. Moreover there are many different ideas about what unveiling meant during that period. According to Rostam-Kolayi, Reza Shah’s unveiling, “as conceived by reformers and the state, generally meant discarding the chador and picheh (face veil of black horsehair mesh, worn under the chador and tied over the head with a ribbon) or neqab/ruband (face veil of rectangular white cloth with latticework panel at one end covering the eyes).” From Jasamin Rostam- Kolayi, “Expanding Agendas for the ‘new’ Iranian Woman: Family Law, Work, and Unveiling.” in ibid, 174. 11 See Daphne Spain, Gendered Spaces (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992).

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Through this process, the hierarchical prioritization and stages in the first Pahlavi dress reforms, which focused on men’s dress, illustrate Iranian women’s status as second-class citizens whose demands were beneath those of men and the military. Like the male population, women’s dress reforms went through various stages. First, the state produced educational and propaganda campaigns with the message that veiling is a disadvantage to women.12 Newspaper articles directly declared the benefits of unveiling as experienced by other Middle Eastern (Muslim) countries. For example, in one article in Nahid Magazine, the author, humorously and at the same time obscenely describes how in a pre-modern society of Iran, in different instances (time and space), certain kinds of clothing were recognized as taboo and forbidden and then turned into an accepted and standard form of clothing. The author provides examples, such as: how the

Colored Chador was regarded as not being Muslim; or how the Colored Pray Chador was permissible within the private space of the house, even among male strangers, but was forbidden in the streets and public spaces.13 These types of articles in state newspapers attempted to challenge the morals and values behind Iranian societal beliefs regarding women dress.

Initially, the Unveiling Act was not mandatory. The state worked to create a safer and more inclusive environment for women and girls to do the unveiling. Even as a state regulation, police received orders to allow women in public places where they were previously not allowed, and even permitted women to enter places unveiled: “the police had received secret orders to

12 Jafari, Morteza Vaghaie-e kashfe Hijab: Asnad Muntashir Nashodeh az Vaqhaie Kashfe Hijab dar Asre Reza Khan (The unpublished Documents from Reza Khan Unveiling Act), ed., Soghra Ismaielzadeh and Masum Farshchi (Tehran: Moaseseie Pajouhesh va Mutaleate Farhangi, 1995): 96. This book is a collection of official telegrams and reports from the provinces to Tehran regarding the campaign for Unveiling Act of Reza Shah. See also Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, 1314/ 1936, p.266. 13 Nahid (Venus), Shahrivar 1306/ 24 August 1927, no. 16, pp.7-9.

139 protect unveiled women.”14 The state also passed a law which mandated fines and penalties for public institutions that did not welcome both genders. As a result, cafés, cinemas, and public gardens (parks) where both genders could congregate and communicate with each other became popular places, particularly for elites, upper middle-class, and some middle-class citizens. The state aimed to normalize these gender-integrated spaces and assumed that women would voluntarily unveil themselves once they experienced the benefits of this form of gender integration.

Later, in 1936, the state began to mandate unveiling in various public institutions. The state first focused on girls’ elementary and high schools where legally-mandated unveiling took place.15 Female students were required to wear a uniform to school, in the streets, and even in their private homes. Female teachers and school officials also received orders to work on the unveiling mandate by giving talks and organizing ceremonies to celebrate the unveiling.16 Soon after, females in the Royal Court and the wives and daughters of government officials and parliament members were required to abandon their veils.17 While a number of Reza Shah’s officials believed that the Unveiling Act should begin within the lower classes of society, he himself believed that it would be hard for ordinary people to abandon their veils and thus focused initially on the unveiling of the wives and daughters of state officials and elites.18 In this way,

14 Bamdad, B. Al Moluk. From Darkness into Light: Women’s Emancipation in Iran, trans. F. R. C. Bagley (California: Mazda Publishers, 1977): 94. 15 Morteza Jafari. Op. Cit., 96. 16 Some female teachers had been exposed to live without the veil outside Iran. 17 Sadr, Mohsen. Khaterat-e Sadr al-Ashraf (The Sadr al-Ashraf memoir), (Tehran: Vahid, 1985): 291 and 305. 18 Ettelaat (Information), Special edition titled: 28000 Days, pp. 266-267. In the state orders to the provinces, in official documents, it had been announced as the “Unveiling Ceremony.” These ceremonies mainly held in public institutions such as schools, Government gardens, Government official’s houses, the house of merchants and affluent people. Reza Shah even put pressure on his state. He gave an unpaid leave of absence to the state’s associates if they did not bring their unveiled wives to official events. See also “Detailed records were kept about who attended and who did not, and those who did not, or came without their wives, were first reprimanded and then fired” in H.E. Chehabi, Op. Cit., 201.

140 female family members of government officials were essentially asked (or required) to teach the values and importance of unveiling to the entire female population through organized events

(e.g., parties) and by simply walking through the streets unveiled.

On January 7, 1936, an official unveiling announcement was made at the Women’s

Teachers’ Training College graduation ceremony in Tehran, the capital city. Female members of the Royal Family, among the most privileged girls and women in the country, appeared unveiled in the ceremony, while Reza Shah announced a law requiring all women appearing in public in the cities of Iran must do so without their traditional veils. Iranian citizens of both genders were also required to wear western-style clothing. Reza Shah stated:

You my sisters and daughters, now that you have entered society and have taken steps for your country’s and your own happiness, must know that it is your duty to work in the path of the homeland. . . [My expectation of you is that] you will be satisfied with life, work at economizing, accustom yourselves to thrift in life, and refrain from luxury and extravagance. . . The point is that you should respect yourselves, have self-esteem and reserved nature, not consider yourselves base or despicable, and think that you have always been great, that you are great, and that you are capable of possessing greatness. . . To you, my own children, I say that you must show with the efforts and actions you perform for the freedom and independence of the country . . . that your honor and pride are linked to the freedom and independence of your country.19 It is clear that Reza Shah’s nationalism was “a theatrical performance of invented community.”20

Particularly since after this official unveiling announcement, once again overlooking the heterogeneous, ethnically-diverse, class-divided Iran, the Shah passed a law that all women who appear in public spaces, in both urban and rural areas, should be without a veil. Not surprisingly,

19 Cited in Amin, Camron Michael. The Making of the Modern Iranian Woman: Gender, State Policy, and Popular Culture, 1865-1946 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002): 59. 20 McClintock, Anne. Op. Cit., 375.

141 public reactions to unveiling varied among social classes and ethnic groups. While some urban elite and upper-class women welcomed the dress reforms, many peasants and lower-class veiled women opposed the Unveiling Act. Reza Shah responded by further tightening laws and militarizing the top-down unveiling order in public spaces. Thus, while some upper-class women experienced unveiling laws as emancipatory, many poorer and rural women experienced the laws as inevitable yet oppressive.

Proper and Improper Bodies in Modern Space

Importantly, the state’s propaganda campaign included many educational and visual materials to assist women in “modernizing” their fashion and bodies. These instructions were amended over time. In the beginning, women were allowed to wear their western-style hats, coats, and gloves in indoors mixed public settings, given that many women felt uncomfortable not wearing the veil.21 Through newspapers, magazines, and advertisements, the state attempted to showcase, disseminate, and appropriate the accomplishments of women from other nations, particularly European countries such as , , and England, and also the USA.22 The semi-official Jahani Zan (Women’s World) magazine went so far as to announce, “we requested a number of newspapers and magazines from foreign capitals (countries) [for educating the

21 The instructions were mainly about western dresses. For example, the state recommended that women should not take off their hats, coats, and gloves when they are participating in indoors and in the mixed gathering. See “Dasture Tashrifat” (Ceremonial Instructions), Ettelaat (Information), no.1, Shahrivar 1315/ (September 1936): 8. 22 Cameron Michael Amin believes “the importation of Western-especially American- ‘beauty culture’ into Iran happened at about the same time as this culture was emerging in America.” See Amin, Camron Michael. “Importing ‘Beauty Culture’ into Iran in the 1920s and 1930s: Mass Marketing Individualism in an Age of Anti-Imperialist Sacrifice,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24, no. 1 (2004): 82.

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Iranian women] and hopefully we will receive them soon.”23 Mehregan magazine declared that from the moment they opened their institution they attempted to guide Iranian women on their clothing and wanted to be their beauty consultant.24

Prior to this period, women were not visually represented (even with veils) in newspapers and magazines in Iran. With the exception of the photographs of Naser-Aldin Shah Qajar’s that became public recently (during second Pahlavi), and a few paintings of European women in Safavid palaces or in a number of private homes of affluent citizens, one can rarely visually trace the dress and beauty routines of the majority of Iranian women before the first

Pahlavi era. As Amin notes, “when the government was encouraging but not compelling unveiling, the use of feminine images in advertising or news coverage did not change much from earlier practice.”25 However, as Jasmin Rostam-Kolayi illustrates, when unveiling became a law, both independent and governmental publications “took part in a campaign to educate Iranian women on a new look for a new era – a look in which cosmetics, western hairstyles, and sensible fashion were part of a sensible and becoming uniform of modernity.”26 For example, hair salons also became popular among unveiled women, “It was a period of great prosperity for dressmakers and hairdressers. One sign of the times was the appearance of milliners’ [hat] shops in the main streets of Tehran and provincial cities.”27 Some women even wanted to go to a male

23 Parsa, Fakhr Afaq. “Avalin khedmate ma (Our First Service),” Jahan-e Zanan (Women’s World), Isfand 1299/ 4 March 1921, no.2. 24 Mehregan, Shahrivar 1317/ 17 September 1938, no. 73, p.22. 25 Amin, Camron Michael. “Importing ‘Beauty Culture’ into Iran in the 1920s and 1930s: Mass Marketing Individualism in an Age of Anti-Imperialist Sacrifice,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24, no. 1 (2004): 87. 26 Argued by Rostam-Kolayi, cited in Ibid, 89. 27 Bamdad, B. Al Moluk. Op. Cit., 96.

143 salon to cut their hair. 28 These new visual representations worked to also transform the subjectivities of Iranian women.

The Ettelaat (Information) newspaper, the so-called feminist magazine Alam-e Nesvan

(Women’s World),29 the semi-independent Jahani Zan (Women’s World), the independent

Mehregan and Nahid (Venus) magazines, as well as the semi-official Salnameh-e Pars (The Pars

Yearbook) all began to include articles on “women’s issues” such as health, hygiene, beauty, and fashion.30 In these publications, the most noticeable kinds of women’s clothing advertised were hats and handbags.31 These periodicals also include numerous articles and descriptions for women on how to style their hair;32 some also highlight the benefits of sunlight for hair growth.33

There were also some instructions about how women should sunbathe and wear swimwear.

Sports were also recommended as part of women’s daily life in various articles and illustrations.34 Even dance was described as a kind of sport.35 Topics such as how sports have a direct effect on women’s beauty, and images of beautiful sceneries of women’s sports, had all

28 Afghani, Ali Mohammad Shohare Ahoo Khanoom (Mrs.Ahoo’s Husband), (Tehran: Amirkabir: 1340/1962): 563 29 Alam-e Nesvan (Women’s World) journal was sponsored and edited by Iranian graduates of Iran Bethel girls’ school, established by the American Mission, and was published with the help of members of the Mission. 30 As mentioned in earlier chapters Ettelaat (Information) was one of the main semi-official newspaper that provided a continues run from 1926 even into present time in Iran. During the reign of Reza Shah, the newspaper focuses on political, cultural, social, and economic news. 31 There is an enormous amount of these ads particularly in Mehregan magazine and Ettelaat (Information) newspaper. The number of ads about hats and hand bags items had increased dramatically during the 1936-1938 (1314 to 1316) because of the Unveiling Act. The ads also proposed seasonal fashions for hats and hand bags. 32 For example, see Mehregan, Shahrivar 1318/ September 1939, no.96, p.22 and Mehregan, Aban 1317/ October 1939, no. 76, p. 10. 33 Mehregan, Shahrivar 1318/ September 1939, no.96, p. 19. 34 For examples, see “Varzesh va Zibaee (Sport and Beauty),” Ibid, 3; “Manazere Ziba az Varzeshe Banovan (Beautiful Sceneries from women Sport),” Mehregan, Isfand 1317/ February 1939, no.84, p.10; and “Meil Darid Ziba va Delroba Bashid? (Do you want to be beautiful and ravishing?),” Mehregan, Shahrivar 1316/ 16 September 1937. no. 73, pp.12–13. 35 “Raghs va Varzesh (Sport and Dance),” Mehregan, Bahman 1317/ January 1939, no.82, p.10.

144 been introduced to Iranian women through this propaganda campaign. These images and ideas about women’s modern beauty then became an inseparable part of their daily education.

In enacting the unveiling laws and promoting western notions of beauty and dress, women were also encouraged to change their behaviors and ultimately their senses of self and subjectivities. As Amin describes it, “behaviors once considered inappropriate and shameful –

[then became viewed as] harmless and appropriate for modern times.”36 It is equally important to indicate that (like male dress reforms) the instructions and prescriptions that official, semi- official, and even women’s independent newspapers and magazines proposed to Iranian women were solely redefining Iranian womanhood based on western models and values, with no attention to the ethnic, linguistic, cultural, geographic, and class diversity of Iran. In this modernization discourse, Iranian women are thus generally assumed to be imperfect, incomplete, and in need of immediate physical/visual/subjective modification and assistance. Article titles such as “Women’s Essential Needs,” “Good News for Ladies,” and “Women’s Wish” convey this gendered desire to be modernized. Articles such as “For Beauty” and “The Secrets of

Beauty” discuss and prescribe methods to “traditional” Iranian woman on how to attain a prettier face, hair, and body.37

Besides the destructive representation of the “traditional Iranian woman” as an imperfect being, this representation also sets up the modernized nation as male and traditional society as female. For example, in an advertisement about medicine (figure 2.4), a “traditional” Iranian

36 Amin, Camron Michael “Importing ‘Beauty Culture’ into Iran in the 1920s and 1930s: Mass Marketing Individualism in an Age of Anti-Imperialist Sacrifice,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24, no. 1 (2004): 93. 37 For examples, see “Baraie Zibaee (For Beauty),” Mehregan, Khordad 1319/ May1940, no.112, p. 12, “Asrare Zibaee (The Secrets of Beauty),” and Mehregan, Aban 1317/ October1938, no.76, pp. 21-22. Besides Amin Believes “urban and middle-class women were expected more often to be beautiful and fashionable in addition to being healthy.” See Camron Michael Amin, “Importing ‘Beauty Culture’ into Iran in the 1920s and 1930s: Mass Marketing Individualism in an Age of Anti-Imperialist Sacrifice,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24, no. 1 (2004): 90.

145 woman is featured as the patient who is seeing a male doctor.38 The male character is represented as a wise individual who prescribes primarily western medicine and cures the female patient. The advertisement signifies how, in the state’s view, the male population has become wise, modern, and productive, while women have remained in their sick, pre-modern, and unproductive roles.

Paradoxically, while Iranian women are represented as unproductive, secondary to the economy, and as second-class citizens, they are at the same time represented in their roles as wives and mothers, and as modern consumers.

Fig 2.4. “Afathaie Chehreh va Rahhaie Modavaie Aan (The Face Disease and its Curing Instructions),” Mehregan, Day 1317/ December1938, no.80, p.10.an advertisement about medicine a woman is featured as the patient who is seeing a male doctor. © MEDOC, University of Chicago.

38 “Afathaie Chehreh va Rahhaie Modavaie Aan (The Face Disease and its Curing Instructions),” Mehregan, Day 1317/ December1938, no.80, p.10.

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Indeed, the gendered propaganda of this period included contradictory values, standards, and messages for women in Iran. In a 1938 issue of Mehregan magazine, on one side of a page an author provides ten instructions from a man to his wife about how “a good ideal woman” should behave in her domestic private married life. He described “A good ideal woman” as a woman who is a good mother, a good housewife, and someone who can work with modern appliances that have been provided to her by her husband. In contrast, on another page a white

European- or American-looking woman is illustrated wearing a swimsuit while floating on a salted sea (Figure 3.4). The (Western!) woman is featured as a floating independent individual.

She is in a public space; however, her unveiled body is immune to any gaze. Her domestic duties left behind, she is busy reading a newspaper, sunbathing, and enjoying the freedom of the natural environment around her.39 On one hand, women were asked to be good wives and mothers – their perceived reproductive roles in modernized development – while at the same time they were encouraged to escape their forced domesticity and act freely as non-surveilled individuals in public spaces. These contradictory gendered roles women were asked to play, as good wives

(reproducers) and modern consumers, were at the center of Reza Shah’s modernization project, signifying both progress and women’s rights40 were integral to the national modern progress.

Women were asked to be good wives and mothers, yet they are also represented as being free- floating, educated individuals.

39 “Chera dar Ab Foro Nemiravad? (Why she is not sinking?),” Mehregan, Mehr 1317/ September1938, no.74, p.10. 40 Najmabadi, Afsaneh. “Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran.” Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, ed. Lila Abu-Lughod, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998): 94.

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Fig 3.4. The (Western!) woman is featured as a floating independent individual “Chera dar Ab Forou Nemiravad? (Why she is not sinking?),” Mehregan, Mehr 1317/ September1938, no.74, p.10. © MEDOC, University of Chicago.

Other advertisements included more nuanced messages about unveiling. For example, a

Ghandghor oil advertisement proposes that one can lose weight without medicine or diet only by using their oil (Figure 4.4). In contrast, a Macaroni ad suggests that skinny and weak bodies are no longer in fashion and that they should eat Macaroni.41 These inconsistent messages reflect tensions concerning Iranian gender norms and standards vs. more recently-introduced western values.

41 For Ghandghor oil see Ettelaat (Information), Khordad 1318/ 10 June 1939, no.3860, p.10. For Macaroni ad see Ettelaat (Information), Day 1312/ 10 June 1934, no.2089, p.1.

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Fig 4.4: Ghandghor oil advertisement. Ettelaat (Information), Khordad 1318/ 10 June 1939, no.3860, p.10. © MEDOC, University of Chicago.

In many ways, Smith Premier Machine Tahrir (typewriter) is a rare advertisement that sums up the ideal modern Iranian woman in the first Pahlavi state’s view (Figure 5.4).42 The ad illustrates a woman sitting in a chair in a private setting. She has short hair and wears modern clothes with a necklace. She has a fit body and is carefree. Holding a mirror, she is doing her makeup and applying cosmetic powder. The notebook on her lap signifies her education and access to knowledge.43 The Smith Premier Machine Tahrir near her implies that she has the ability to type and therefore she is productive. Sitting in a private setting demonstrates being a

“productive” modern member of a nation does not necessitate a woman going to a workplace to work. She can be productive even by being domestic and sitting in her modern indoor private

42 Ettelaat (Information), Tir 1314/ 30 June 1936, no.2521, p.8. 43 Spain, Daphne Op. Cit., 3. Daphne Spain argues “women and men are spatially segregated in ways that reduce women’s access to knowledge and thereby reinforce women’s lower status relative to men’s. ‘Gendered spaces’ separate women from knowledge used by men to produce and reproduce power and privilege.” In other words, spatial segregation between sexes results in gender stratification, which prevents women from accessing valued resources and knowledge.

149 space.44 The Smith Premier signage in the background, in English and Farsi, is part of the decoration of the modern interior as well. There is a vase filled with flowers in the illustration frame as part of the interior decoration which associates with the soft and curvy female body yet also brings the outside world inside. What the Smith Premier Machine Tahrir and similar advertisements suggest is that the state initially assumed that female readers of its propaganda would understand and accept the elements of this advertisement (and others) and would happily and readily assume these new patriotic, domesticized, educated, athletic, and economically

(re)productive roles, appearances, and subjectivities.

Fig 5.4. Smith Premier Machine Tahrir (typewriter) Ettelaat (Information), Tir 1314/ 30 June 1936, no.2521, p.8. © MEDOC, University of Chicago.

44 Ibid, 227. The idea goes back to the ideas of popularity of female typists and secretaries in West and the US. Spain declares the importance of the accessibility of knowledge and education for women. She claims education was separated largely by having men-only schools, which limited women’s access to knowledge. Spain declares that soon after American women attended colleges and professional training, their educational and social status dramatically changed. Likewise, in the workplace, the differences and hierarchies between bosses (men) and the secretaries (women) controlled the space and privacy. This is mainly because “when women and men do not share the same workplace, women do not receive information that can be translated into higher status in the form of higher wages.”

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The first Pahlavi state’s paradoxical ideas about Western-oriented modernization and simultaneous nationalization became more evident when the state struggled to block the importation of luxury merchandise. To protect local businesses and to prevent a crash in Iranian currency, the state stopped the importation of unnecessary luxury goods and worked to monopolize foreign trade.45 However, when it came to women’s unnecessary luxury goods such as hair pieces, curlers, nail polish, swimwear, corsets, and hats, the state did not stop the importation. Some advertisements sought to promote national goods and commodities, most of which were duplicates of original western products and thus not seen as “Iranian.” Iranian women preferred to buy the imported products despite the fact that they were twice as expensive as the price of the same locally-produced product.46 Through the importation of foreign goods,

Iranian women who purchased beauty and fashion products came to represent Iran’s new

“consumer culture” (Karimi, 2013). Although historically women in Iran tended to use organic, locally-made cosmetics, through westernized modernization they began to purchase and use imported beauty products and western-style dress.

The first Pahlavi state thus created both a consumer culture and a beauty culture, leading to new notions of what constitutes a “good” body shape and a “beautiful” face. Women were expected to be more athletic, watch their weight, and take care of their skin. Facial beauty was a must; freckles, wrinkles, and acne needed to be cured.47 The message to women was, “beauty could be acquired and should be maintained; it was not simply a matter of nature or birth. One could improve upon nature through a variety of recent inventions.”48 For example, women

45 Ettelaat (Information), Day 1305/ 10 January 1927, no.124. 46 Ibid. 47 Mehregan, Aban 1317/ October1938, no.76, pp. 21-22. 48 Rostam-Kolayi, Jasamin. Op. Cit., 174.

151 started receiving electrotherapy and surgeries to remove their wrinkles and excess hairs. In addition, magazine articles began to argue that women’s progress could be accomplished by any woman and needed to be achieved through their own efforts. An ideology of individualism was central to this messaging. For example, one article in the Mehregan magazine explains how

American women are forwarding their goals by highlighting “when an American woman decides, she will make it happen no matter how.”49 Iranian women were thus encouraged to think more in individualistic terms about their lives and futures.

More generally, this propaganda campaign aimed to break taboos and resignify gender norms, alongside norms of work, family, economy, and nation, in Iran. The Unveiling Act recognized and identified by many as the emancipation of Iranian women from the “prison of

Chador and fort of Hijab,”50 including the Western-oriented modern dress reforms and new instructions on and representations of women’s body shape, size, and beauty. These were among the first steps toward reconfiguring and disciplining Iranian women’s subjectivities, transforming them into modern wives, mothers, (re)producers, and consumers. Since the first Pahlavi state needed “docile [modern] bodies,” Iranian women’s own bodies, understood through the lens of tradition, effectively became women’s enemies in the disciplinary project of modernization.

Michel Foucault addresses modern societies’ endeavors to deconstruct, reconstruct, and subordinate the pre-modern body:

What was then being formed was a policy of coercions that act upon the body, a calculated manipulation of its elements, its gestures, its behavior. The human body was entering a machinery power that explores it, breaks it down and rearranges it. A “political anatomy,” which was also a “mechanism of power,” was being born; it defined how one may have a hold over others’ bodies, not

49 “Banovane America va Mode (The US women and Fashion),” Mehregan, Shahrivar 1318/ September 1939, no.95, p.24. 50 Afghani, Ali Mohammad. Op. Cit., 16.

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only so that they may do what one wishes, with the techniques, the speed and the efficiency that one determines. Thus, discipline produces subjected and practiced bodies, “docile” bodies.51 Although Foucault describes how modern institutions work to produce and discipline docile bodies, he does little to address how disciplinary practices are inherently gendered. In the case of the first Pahlavi state’s Unveiling Act and propaganda campaign, the state worked to de- institutionalize existing forms of gender segregation in public and private spaces, including through men’s and women’s dress codes and laws about the more integrated gendered use of public spaces. Through coercive unveiling and dress reforms, to some degree, Reza Shah lifted the gender barriers between men and women, albeit through contradictory values, standards, and messages that ultimately still reinforced a gender hierarchy in Iranian society.

It is important to point out that the audiences of state propaganda were primarily elite, urban, upper-class, and in some cases middle-class women. Following the unveiling laws, women then needed to focus more on perfecting their outer clothing and beauty than ever before.

While lower-income class women could wear their old and worn clothing under the Chador, with the mandatory unveiling they needed to either find a way to find proper, acceptable, or

“respectable” clothing or feel embarrassed and stay at home. In rural provinces, some reports indicated that one of the primary reasons that women violated the unveiling law was due to poverty.52 Cornin argues:

one major problem for most low-class women was that they simply lacked the sartorial culture of appearing in public without a bodily cover, and in any case, it was very expensive for them at the time. They also lacked the culture of a proper

51 Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. (New York: Vintage Books, 1979): 138. 52 In provinces, official reports severe poverty was mentioned as the main two factors that women violate the unveiling order. “Sazmane Ketabkhane va Asnade Melli Iran (National Library and Archive of Iran), no.293/13213.

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hairstyle and—apart from that— would have felt much less shy if they could cover their hair with a scarf.53 Among the veiled women were religious women, the peasants, and women from the lower income class of society who comprised the largest part of the female population. This resulted in more exclusion of these social groups as, according to some records, some women did not leave their house for the 5-6 years the Unveiling Act was in effect.54 As a result of this, the state established a number of welfare-like programs for peasants and low-income women, particularly in the provinces.55 For example, state officials were sent to Europe to buy clothing and distribute them to poor women in rural areas.56 Despite these measures, they were not nearly enough to provide sufficient support for women of all social classes, particularly those most in need.

Limited Mobility and Unlimited Surveillance

The Unveiling Act could not triumph the way it was planned by the first Pahlavi state.

Soon after the official unveiling law was announced, strong opposition and protests from patriarchal family structure, religious clergies, and even some groups of women, arose around the country (Iranians who did not want to change their tradition). Many people profoundly resented the idea of coercive unveiling and westernization. Local police were authorized to arrest and punish any protester and to enforce the unveiling law through the forceful removal of

53 Cronin, Stephanie. The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921-1941, ed. Stephanie Cronin, (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003): 32. See also “Sazmane Ketabkhane va Asnade Melli Iran (National Library and Archive of Iran), no.350/8844 and no.293/131213. 54 The unveiling became voluntarily after Reza Shah period, in second Pahlavi era. 55 “Sazmane Ketabkhane va Asnade Melli Iran (National Library and Archive of Iran), no.350/8844 and no.293/131213. 56 Jafari, Morteza. Op. Cit., 96.

154 women’s veils.57 The top-down order and the opposition against unveiling made the Unveiling

Act a brutal and militarized reform. Outside a private home, in any public space or street, the state’s police were ready to tear down and strip off any piece of clothing that could cover women’s hair or face and/or that had the shape or functions of the Chador, Scarf or Shal (except for a European hat).58 Just as during previous (and later) periods in Iranian history when unveiled women were prohibited from public life and participation,59 this time veiled women were banned from appearing in public. In imposing the unveiling policy, public spaces became Foucauldian- like modern “panopticon” sites for Iranian women. Foucault’s theory of modern disciplinary power, which is based on Jeremy Bentham’s “panopticon” design as the principle of the disciplinary society in which individuals are induced into “a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power,”60 captures how Iranian public space became a key site of state vigilance, including through the disciplining of women’s bodies.61

In other words, the police, whose mandated aim was to control crimes and protect women, became investigator and controller of women’s bodies. Even an article in the official police newspaper enumerated all the crimes and vices that had flourished under the Chador, claiming that Chador had been effective in aiding criminals. Municipalities even received orders to obligate the prostitutes to come out with the black Chador to show the Iranian population the

57 The Goharshad rebellion is the well-known example of such. The uprising happened in 1935, against the western-oriented modernization and secularist policies of Reza Shah. This protest happened in the Reza shrine in the city of Mashhad. 58 Afghani, Ali Mohammad. Op. Cit., 450. 59 Ibid, 25.In the novel Shohare Ahoo Khanoom, Homa mentions that her ex-husband did not buy her Chador to prevent her from going out. He knew that women cannot go out without veil. 60 Foucault, Michel. Op. Cit., 201. 61 The panopticon is a circular design prison model which has a central tower. The tower has wide windows that open to the inner side of the ring. The cells are in the periphery and each has two windows: one faces the central tower and the other faces to the outside. The outside window produces an enough amount of backlight, which makes any objects visible within the cell. Based on this structure, a supervisor in the central tower can control all cells.

155 negativity of the veil.62 Such acts allowed no room for variations in the choices women might make. “Iranian women appear to move from kept in ignorance to being forcibly enlightened.”63

Whether calling it ignorance or enlightenment, public spaces turned into the site of a continuous contestation over ideas about gender, ethnic, and class norms and hierarchies. The women left out of this equation were relegated to the realm of ignorance and fanaticism or seen as awaiting enlightenment. They continue to be policed by men and their bodies become the site of

(direct, physical) enforcement.

Rather than desegregating public spaces, in fact the Unveiling Act unwillingly alienated large groups of women. Many women refused to leave their homes due to the fear of having their

Chador or veil stripped off by the police force. For many women not wearing the veil was a “sin and disgrace.”64 In the unveiling ceremony, state officials’ wives were elderly women who were forced to accept the unveiling and participate in the unveiling ceremony without the veil;

“however, [they] were invisibly so upset by the loss of facial cover that they stood almost the whole time, looking at the wall and perspiring with embarrassment.”65 Given that, public space was not only a site of surveillance by others but also a site of self-surveillance. Women were forced to decide what they did or did not want to wear or do, thus making them self-conscious and/or causing them to change their daily routines, particularly in public spaces.

In a novel, Shohare Ahoo Khanom, the author Ali Mohammad Afghani magnificently describes Homa, a middle-class woman who lived in a north-west province of Iran. Homa voluntarily choosed to unveil and felt very emancipated about the unveiling when she first heard about it. However, Homa undergoes a thought-provoking and unexpected judicious experience

62 Bamdad, B. Al Moluk. Op. Cit., x. See also Afghani, Ali Mohammad. Op. Cit., 450. 63 Bamdad, B. Al Moluk. Op. Cit., ix. 64 Ibid, 94. 65 Ibid, 96.

156 the first day she went out unveiled, in the company of her middle-aged religious husband

(Miran), to their city’s unveiling ceremony. Her neighbors and the people of nearby alleys and streets were omnipresent in the events day everywhere and they surprisingly watched her and other unveiled women. Although she covered her head with a piece of clothing like a scarf, men and women alike were staring at her and other unveiled female individuals as if they were confronted an astounding object, in Homa’s words: “coming from another planet, Mars.”66 The unveiling which previously took place only in private spaces, including in the andaruni67 of

(affluent) courtyard houses, far from any male strangers’ gaze, was now part of modern public life. This dramatically challenged and disrupted women’s and men’s experiences of and ideas about inside/outside, interior/exterior, and masculine/feminine dichotomies.

In all likelihood, in the modernization project of Reza Shah, both unveiled and veiled individuals were in the panopticon. The exposure and visibility of the unveiled woman as a symbol of modernity, as well as the visual, legal, and sometimes physical control of the veiled woman, both imply a form of imprisonment and modern creation of “docile” female bodies.68

Either unveiled or veiled, both bodies were the gazer and gazee, it was only the nature of gaze that had been different in each instance.69 For women who unveiled, the loss of state inspection over their bodies did not imply that they were no longer subject to state and public surveillance.

On one hand, the unveiled individual is gazee who is objectified by the gaze of others. She is seen by the state and the rest of the world as a visible semi-western, modern, enlightened Iranian

66 Homa believed that a better fortune is waiting for all women. See Afghani, Ali Mohammad. Op. Cit., 445-446. 67 As mentioned in previous chapters, andaruni is an architectural space in the affluent Iranian houses with gendered segregated spaces. 68 Foucault decodes this power system in modern societies. He demonstrates that the effects of power “circulate through progressively finer channels, gaining access to individuals themselves, to their bodies, their gestures, and all their daily actions.” See Foucault, Michel. Op. Cit., 151. 69 Colomina, Beatriz. “The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism” In Sexuality and Space 1992, edited by Beatriz Colomina, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Papers on Architecture, 1992): 88.

157 woman. Her feminine subjectivity and embodiment becomes an instrument of controlling the gaze by making herself both “fit in” and “disappear,” a vanishing point in the state’s public performance of modernity.70 On the other hand, she is a gazer, as (consciously or unconsciously) she is re-appropriating western values and standards of femininity in the name of Iranian modernization and modernity. In both scenarios, her individuality and her identity are under dispute, her “traditional Iranian values” and “western values” are under contestation and negotiation. Similarly, the veiled woman who is the target of disciplinary state control in public spaces needed to position and adjust herself through isolation and self-monitoring.

Metaphorically the veiled women is both the gazer of her peers’ collective oppression (and solidarity) and a gazee of the modern panopticon.

Conclusion: The Paradox of Identity

The history of women’s emancipation in Iran during Reza Shah’s modernization of the built environment project is complex; it requires an intersectional and transnational lens to understand the paradoxes, nuances, and forms of identification that women (and men) have made during this period of dramatic change. The state has positioned itself as a protector and “savior” of women through forced unveiling while women’s emancipation defined as a wider project and linked to the notion of the modern nation-state; women being described as the responsible represent, reproducer, and trainer of the modern nation.

Conflicts and differences exist among Iranian women of different social classes and backgrounds, including the privileged elites and those of the lower classes. The elite women who interpreted the veil as a signifier of backwardness praised Reza Shah as an enlightened ruler.

They viewed the Unveiling Act as an effort which democratized gender roles and took advantage

70 Ibid, 98.

158 of the freedom of access to confront patriarchal traditional ideologies. The image of the backward veiled woman, who belongs to the traditional past, served as a contrast to the more highly-evolved image of ideal womanhood among the unveiled urban elite and middle-class women. In other words, the emergence of modern social hierarchies (re)created class divisions during the first Pahlavi state as emancipated elite women applauded state-imposed unveiling as a symbol of social progress. Meanwhile, lower-class and religious women in both urban and rural areas felt the acute impact of this law as a violation of their bodies and their senses of self.

Through these practices, the disciplinary state transformed women’s perceptions of their bodies, produced a subjected, docile body, and constructed a new identity for women in Iran. The state policy also gave some women anxiety about Western-dominated standards of beauty and gender norms and expectations more generally. Some women compared themselves to the western model of the “ideal woman” and struggled to get closer to western standards of modernity. In addition, women’s increased participation in the public realm made them live with their bodies as seen by others, as gazed upon by unmarked or unnamed patriarchal “Others.” These policies led women of Iran to become subjectively trapped in the modern state panopticon; they became self-surveilling subjects.

It is important to highlight the role of some women themselves in supporting Reza Shah’s modernization project, including the Unveiling Act. The first Pahlavi’s attempt to westernize and modernize men’s and women’s dress, desegregate the gendered built environment, and integrate private and public spheres, was primarily opportunistic: western gender ideals were mapped onto the nation and newly-formed modern state; women’s bodies were used to institutionalize an ideology of individualism and forged a nation that resembled western-oriented modern values.

Ultimately this modernization project failed to emancipate all women or to improve gender

159 relations among all social classes. In fact, the state nationalist western-oriented modernization project was expressed more as a transnational solidarity between elite modernized Iranian women and their western counterparts. Women of upper and middle classes were the main beneficiaries of the state politics including unveiling, education, desegregation, and employment.

To conclude, the influences of Reza Shah’s reforms are perhaps still influencing and contributing to the reorganization of Iranian society. Iran, being among the top-ranked countries in consuming beauty and cosmetic products and performing plastic surgeries, can prove that the ideal, western woman and unconscious self-surveillance that was introduced because of Western- oriented modernization propaganda transformed Iranian women’s perception of their bodies.

Alongside this, the built environment, including both public and private spaces, continue to be important sites where women negotiate their rights in Iran. Discriminatory regulations, laws, culture, and “tradition” have always controlled and restricted the freedom of access to public spaces for Iranian women. This continues today. In the next chapter I conclude on how interdisciplinary studies of architecture, gender, and space; nationalism; transnational feminism; and intersectionality in Iran allow us to rethink top-down, state-centered modernization practices and imagine a more just future.

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Conclusion

Architecture and Gendered Identities in early Twentieth-Century Iran

During the era of Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iran experienced historically unprecedented and irreversible cultural, physical, political, and economic shifts. Within a very short time period,

Reza Shah ushered in remarkable structural changes in urban planning, architecture construction, and gender relations in Iran. The nature, the scale, and the scope of his western-oriented modernization agenda created clear conflict amongst Iranians grappling with the existing versus the newly-introduced (and imposed) measures. These tensions raise broad and complex questions about tradition vs. modernity, religion vs. secular, private vs. public, and particularly the role of the state in proposing such radical agendas. In this context of the modernization of the built environment, include the new usage of public and private spaces, the transition in housing design and typology, and the targeting of women as new markers of modernity, there were constant negotiations between the state and various groups of (especially) women. In other words, the state, which while not a homogenous institution conveyed a hegemonic message about Reza

Shah’s modernization project as progressive and emancipatory; in contrast Iranian women and men “imagined” modernization in their own ways, reflecting their distinct experiences of these rapid changes and at times explicitly voicing their discontent with the hegemonic state message about modernization.

Throughout this dissertation, I have argued for a more nuanced experience of modernization of the built environment; one that extends beyond narratives of the state and of architects and urban planners. In Chapter One, I reviewed existing scholarship produced in Iran and elsewhere and introduced my theoretical and analytical framework, emphasizing the transnational and intersectional feminist approach that I take in this research.

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In Chapter Two, I discussed the urban changes in major cities and the ways in which

Iranian cities were transformed from traditionally-inward structures to a modern, open arrangements. While examining the role of the state in this transformation, I also elaborated on the symbolic role of state-sponsored nationalist architecture in the modernization of urban spaces. The position of making modern (whether a modern nation, a modern house, or a modern woman) within this larger search for national expression is an intriguing topic that I have tackled in this chapter from different angles. Nationalism was one of the main driving forces of Iranian architecture culture for Reza Shah and his state that was projected to present a powerful, unified image of Iran to the world. More specifically, I analyzed how nationalism was both implicitly and explicitly gendered during this period, highlighting how women’s social and political participation publicly illuminated gendered nationalism and exemplified contradictory responses

(emancipation vs. resistance), from society at large and from different groups of women.

In Chapter Three, I examined more in-depth the traditional courtyard house (through spatial and physical analysis). In introducing the gender dimensions of courtyard house architecture, I pointed out its various typologies within the Middle East and Iran. I elaborated on the many ways in which inward courtyard housing embodies social and gender hierarchies that create the politics of vision, access, and privacy for women. I demonstrated the gendered architectural elements in courtyard houses that facilitated the further gender segregation and perpetuated binaries of feminine vs. masculine and public vs. private spaces. In Chapter Three I also analyzed citizen’s transition from a courtyard house to a modern house and I explained the ways in which the modern house became a new kind of stage set that aimed to discipline and direct women’s performances and hence women’s roles inside the house.

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In Chapter Four, I examined how the push for westernized modernization in Iran included a heavy emphasis on importing western clothing, introducing the idea of fashion (vs. dress), and marketing a new idea of Iranian womanhood that emphasized women’s outward appearance (to the world). Women faced various tensions – from their husbands and other male family members who defended patriarchal traditions, and from the newly-formed patriarchal, protectionist state – and were forced to negotiate these contradictory messages in their daily lives, at the cross-section of conservative society, cultural tradition, and patriarchal ideologies within private and public spaces. While examining the paradoxical top-down Unveiling Act and spatial reforms, I also elaborated on the ways in which the state attempted to restructure notions of the public and private, subsequently converting public spaces into the state’s constant site of surveillance of private life. One important point I addressed in this chapter was that the Unveiling Act could not and did not weaken the patriarchal system of male domination in Iran. The unveiling gave women’s bodies a new stage to perform their femininity outside the domestic realm of their family, male domination, and patriarchy; however, a new patriarchal system of power, this time from the state, controlled them in many other ways.

As a way of conclusion, in what follows I address the crucial role of architecture as creating yet also potentially rearticulating spaces of inclusion, exclusion, and/or in providing liminal spaces of negotiation. I look again at the ways in which spatial tactics, public spaces, and architectural constituents are gendered sites of domination, subordination, control, surveillance, yet also terrains of resistance, transformation, and freedom. I address the implication of this dissertation and the ways in which the combination of architecture methods and feminist scholarship can be employed as a new way to study different women group’s experiences in the

163 built environment. Below I summarize my interdisciplinary, transnational, and intersectional feminist approach as it speaks to broader discussions about architecture and gender.

Concluding Thoughts and Future Notes

First, during Reza Shah’s project to modernize the built environment in Iran, utilizing nationalist and modernist discourses, implicitly and clearly also explicitly relied upon gendered representation, including a specific representation of women as in need of emancipation, in relation to space, the built environment, and the construction of the new modern nation of Iran.

Throughout this dissertation I have discussed the topic of space on different scales, ranging from the space of a nation to city planning, to architecture design (and its components), to a

(re)domestication of private space, to interior design, to ideas about privacy and personal space. I described space in two ways: 1) space as a given context from the state and modernist urban planners and architects; 2) space as a site of negotiation between top-down and bottom-up forces and therefore as a product of social interactions.

In providing multiple examples from my archival research, I have explored the ambiguities, complexities, and contradictions resulting from encounters between the state- imposed modernization project and women’s and men’s experiences during this transitional period. I argue that top-down, linear practices of modernization during the Reza Shah era is only part of the picture. Rather, the tensions between the top-down order and the bottom-up tactics and everyday forms of negotiation of women (and men) all contributed to creating liminal, hybrid spaces of old and new, western and local, individual and collective, secular and religious, and feminine and masculine.

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I also want to emphasize that in fact women became highly visible agents of this modernization project. Indeed, their embodied experiences and forms of subjectivity reflected and spoke to various topics of the day, from the representation of the country of Iran as

“feminized” character (e.g. as a motherland in need of protection and as a new and thus

“feminine” nation), to the ways in which women navigated the public/private spaces of the house, and including how women were portrayed as modern docile bodies and new capitalist consumers of fashion and western clothing. In all of these spaces, the state paralleled their modernization reforms with calls for modifying women’s visual appearance and their physical mobility. This new concept of the modern Iranian woman as an agent of the modern nation was propagated by the state and elites, through newspapers, magazine publications, and educational initiatives. For example, various advertisements detailed the importance of sports and diet on women’s lives, including the precision and perfection of women’s bodies shapes, movements, and measurements. These mediums introduced the state’s desirable model, as a modern western woman who fits into western beauty ideals and likewise into western ideals of hygiene. As a result of these modern cultural and economic practices, I argue that women’s bodies became sites of discipline, control and regulation in many ways.

Another key conclusion I wish to make here is how the modern house and the modern

Iranian woman were produced simultaneously; modern woman and modern house discourses and practices not only complemented each other but also, they helped constitute the other. In Reza

Shah’s idea of modernization, both the new modern house and emancipated women were expected to be visible and behold characteristics of outwardness, openness, and beauty. Both modern house and modern women were unveiled in the name of national progress and representation. At the same time both house (space) and women (gender) were disciplined in

165 new ways, with certain patriarchal practices transferring from individual being to the modern nation-state. As a key example, the state and modernist architects viewed and marketed the modern house as a space where women could more efficiently and healthily practice motherhood and womanhood based on modern masculinist notions of consumption, class respectability, hygiene, and family life. Through this process, modern women’s practices in a modern house were signified as a theatrical performance that displayed femininity and gender roles to the gaze of the (male/masculinist) audience of the modern world. The architecture of the modern house was thus implicitly a stage for the production of the modern Iranian woman.

In portions of this dissertation, I also referred to women as “active users” and demonstrate how they shaped and reshaped the imposed roles and spaces based on their values and desires. As users of space, many women challenged the gender, class, ethnic, and political inequalities that placed them (and men) in a particular hierarchy and limited their mobility.

Women’s various experiences show that there is not a sole distinction between traditional and modern in everyday life. Iranian women have developed tactics to move back and forth between modern and traditional when they needed to, as a form of strategic resistance or adaptation. For example, in Chapter Three I provided examples of women’s activities in the modern house and I illustrated how women extended their household duties, for example, cooking preparation beyond a modern kitchen. I also explained how women usage of spaces cannot be easily dictated through the architecture and urban planning. Women (and men) themselves change the essence of different spaces through their cultural responses and needs, whether by altering the uses of various spaces or by formulating tactics to customize the spaces. They reshape and reintroduce vitality, plurality, and diversity to the spaces decreed to them by modernist architects and the state. In these ways, I argue that these practices embodied different forms of resistance to the

166 modern structural changes in the built environment. These forms of resistance are part of a continuous struggle to inscribe women’s agency in the formation of modern Iran. These practices were manifestations of people’s desire to keep their certain aspects of their lives private yet also to keep their cultural traditions (even while notions of the public and private rapidly changed, including in the built environment, in modern Iran). As such, drawing from transnational feminist theories, I argue that there is not monolithic definition of emancipation or freedom, nor one idea of an “imagined” future, nation, a way of being, or living in a space.

In Chapter Four, I highlighted how “us” a “semi-bourgeois-modern-unveiled us” vs. a

“backward-pre-modern-veiled other” alienated different women’s group during Reza Shah era.

Elite urban women who viewed the state control of their bodies as a positive contribution to the development of urban life advocated for the freedom against traditional patriarchal taboos under the shelter of the state. Some veiled women viewed these intrusions as major problems that restricted their mobility and freedom. These distinct responses and resistances need to be situated in women’s family context, and in the context of how patriarchal relations intersect with these political ideologies. Whether it was conscious or unconscious, women’s (and men’s) practices of resistance helped to shape and reshape their identities during the early twentieth-century in Iran.

This research is a timely response to the fact that the process of modernization in Iran has never completely translated into cohesive, collective experiences and expectations for women

(and men). Instead, it imposed a homogenized idea of women’s needs and desires. The social segregation and surveillance of women’s participation in public life are still valid in many cases in today’s Iran (e.g. compulsory hijab). In fact, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which made wearing the hijab compulsory for women, is in part a response to the earlier top-down and incomplete project of westernized modernization. Ironically, while women’s bodies, appearance

167 and mobility have been hypervisible in Iranian history, their actual rights and freedom of choice have always been limited and devalued, in modern, nationalist, and traditionalist contexts alike.

As a second general conclusion, Reza Shah’s modernization project, with its emphasis on the professionalization of architecture design and practice, created a clear division between the modern way of construction and local traditional methods. Specifically, as I illustrated in

Chapter Three, this process created a separation between the plans of the state and European- trained modernist architects. and the daily practices of Usta Memars. The inclusion of professional architects into national narratives about urban planning and architecture, and the exclusion of Usta Memars from the mainstream state’s agendas, created a clear gap between elite, upper-class citizens and modernist architects, and the housing of middle- and lower-class people. For example, although modernist architects in Iran attempted to define modern principles of outward geometric forms with horizontal windows for their architecture, most citizens built their own housing and practiced architecture outside the modern canon, utilizing traditional rather than modern styles and materials. As such, modern housing excluded many citizens who did not have the physical, economic, or cultural resources to benefit from the modernization of the built environment. This, in particular, demonstrates the need for examining the modernization of architecture using an intersectional lens. More generally, as I point in throughout this dissertation, architecture and the usage of space need to be understood through an intersectional lens that takes into account, for example gender, culture, class, race, and sexuality. As one important example, domestic spaces often target women or presume that all women use them in similar ways; nonetheless, these spaces have rarely been designed by women and/or designed with women’s perspectives and experiences in mind. My intersectional approach

168 to design is thus also a call for architects to understand women (and men) as active subjects rather than as passive objects of their design.

I believe even mainstream historiography can reduce women’s experiences to spatial patterns and interpret their resistances as anomalies or in black and white terms. Analyzing women’s histories and their experiences in public, private, and personal spaces is just the beginning of mapping women’s experiences of the built environment. My research reveals how the experiences of different groups of women complicate the architectural historiography of modern Iran, particularly in the early twentieth century. Mainly because no approach to design can or should uniformly dictate women’s (and men’s) styles of living in a given space. Space is socially constructed, and individuals as agents figure out and negotiate how they want to use and customize the space.

Reza Shah’s ideologies, his urban and architecture reforms, his desegregation of gendered public and private spaces, and the secular bureaucratic institutions that he introduced to

Iran have not and cannot be dismantled from the history of Iran. His modern politics have become a permanent fixture in Iran’s historical/collective memory. Reza Shah abdicated under pressure from the Allies, during WWII, in 1941. His son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi established the second Pahlavi dynasty (1941-1979). In his last days in power, in various periodicals, many elites and citizens feared that Iran’s modernization project would fail without him. What these groups could not grasp, perhaps, was the power of their agency in the modernization process. What is clear then is that the modern practices in Iran opened up a debate about the inability of Iranians to rely on the past yet the uncertainty of the future. In many ways,

Reza Shah’s abdication suspended Iran between the search of an ancient past and a modern future. Today, Iranians continue to grapple with what modernization means, how it relates to

169 secularism, religion, and tradition, what women’s roles are in “modern” society, and which kind of modernization, if any, is best for Iran.

170

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