Shushtar New Town: A Turning Point in Iranian Social Housing History Rahmatollah Amirjani A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture University of Canberra 2020 1 Abstract The emergence of the Shushtar New Town housing project in 1977, designed by Iranian architect Kamran Diba, raised a great hope among contemporary Iranian architects and authorities. Diba’s design offered an alternative approach that stood against the existing housing issues and challenges caused by the government’s radical housing ideology, and the universalisation of Western lifestyle values. Yet, even while Diba’s Shushtar social housing project was receiving worldwide architecture awards, signs of erosion were gradually emerging in the project. Today, just a few parts of the original design remain unchanged, while the rest have been demolished or transformed by its residents. As a result, critics and historians were left with a number of questions: why should such an allegedly great pioneer project suddenly become one of the most prominent architectural loopholes in the housing history of Iran? What were the accountable design components of social housing that Diba failed to address? And how could the Shushtar New Town experience contribute to more general social housing discourses? These questions will be addressed through literature review, documentary research, observation, and descriptive data analysis. i Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... i Form B ....................................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................... xiii Chapter One_ Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 Research Questions ............................................................................................................... 4 Research Methods ................................................................................................................. 5 Significance and Innovation .................................................................................................. 6 Limitations and Scope ........................................................................................................... 7 Chapter Two_ Social Housing: An Ongoing Story .................................................................... 9 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 9 The State of Working-Class Housing before the Industrial Revolution ................................ 9 Industrialisation and the Rise of Social Housing ................................................................ 14 Company Towns ............................................................................................................... 16 Utopias .............................................................................................................................. 17 The Rise of the First Public Housing ................................................................................ 22 Social Housing and Utopia in the Early Twentieth Century: The Golden Age .................. 25 CIAM and the Question of Minimum Housing ................................................................... 29 Social Housing and Ideology ............................................................................................... 32 Social Housing After the Second World War: The Crisis ................................................... 36 From Machine Ideology to Particularism ............................................................................ 38 Social Housing: Commodification Versus Humanism ........................................................ 42 What is Happening to Social Housing? The Current Trends .............................................. 44 Chapter Three_ The History of Social Housing in Iran ........................................................... 49 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 49 Iranian Oil Towns Between 1908 and 1979 ........................................................................ 50 v The Rise of Anglo-Persian Oil Company and the Early Company Towns ...................... 50 The 1920s Oil Company Towns ....................................................................................... 52 The 1930s Transitions in Town Planning: The First Turning Point ................................. 59 Iranian Oil Towns Between 1945 and 1950 ..................................................................... 68 The 1951 Nationalisation, Coup and Consortium: The Second Turning Point ................ 75 Oil Towns Between 1951 and 1979: The Golden Age ..................................................... 77 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 80 The History of Public Housing Between the 1920s and Mid-1970s: Social Housing as a Means of Social Engineering ............................................................................................ 82 Modernisation and Housing Shortage (1920-1940s) ........................................................ 82 Social Housing and the Agency of Social Transformation (1940s – 1960s) .................... 87 The Emergence of Medium- and High-Rise Affordable Housing (Late 1950s - Late 1960s) .............................................................................................................................. 102 Towering Up: Rapid Modernisation and the Dissemination of High-Rise Social Housing (1970s) ............................................................................................................................ 113 From Affordability to Luxury ......................................................................................... 116 The Failure of Social Housing: The Search for Alternatives (Early-1970s)................... 119 The Continuation of High-Rise Housing (Mid-1970s) ................................................... 130 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 137 Chapter Four_ The Realisation of Shushtar New Town: A Response ................................... 141 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 141 Kamran Diba’s Biography and Design Thinking .............................................................. 142 Biographical Note ........................................................................................................... 142 Kamran Diba’s Take on the Collective ........................................................................... 148 The Rise of the Shushtar New Town Project .................................................................... 151 Kamran Diba’s Design Approach in Shushtar New Town................................................ 163 The Morphology, Typology and Design Analyses of Shushtar New Town ..................... 165 The Morphological Examination of Shushtar New Town .............................................. 166 vi Typology ......................................................................................................................... 170 Shushtar New Town Design Aspects ................................................................................ 184 Circulation, Spin and Communal Areas ......................................................................... 184 Structure and Construction Materials ............................................................................. 190 Membrane and Expression .............................................................................................. 194 Infrastructure, Ventilation and Maintenance .................................................................. 199 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 203 Chapter Five_ Success and Failure: The Lessons .................................................................. 205 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 205 Shushtar New Town in the Aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution ............................ 205 The Incompleteness and Revolution ............................................................................... 205 The Question of Class –Tradition versus Modernity ...................................................... 209 The Eight-Year War ........................................................................................................ 214 The Conflict Between Design and Ownership - A Universal Battle .............................. 217 Social Harmony .............................................................................................................. 223 The Effects of Consumerism .........................................................................................