A colour photograph displays a bright red Coca-Cola advertisement reminiscent of 1960s American middle class consumption. The photograph, however, was taken in southwest Iran, in the city of Abadan, merely a few decades after the establishment of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the construction of the first oil refinery in the Middle East. In the span of a few short decades, Abadan became the symbol of modernity conjured by oil wealth and the icon of Iranian anti-colonial struggle against British imperialism in the movement for nationalization of oil. This paper analyzes the temporal tensions in iconic representations of Abadan before and after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Based on analysis of visual and literary material of Abadan’s contemporary built and natural environment, I argue that Abadan is characterized by a paradoxical temporality--defined at once as a city in decline and a symbol of progress. As the site of the operation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (and later, the National Iranian Oil Company), Abadan was spatialized and memorialized in the national imaginary through photographs, films, novels, and newspapers in pre-Revolutionary Iran. After the 1979 Revolution, the physical remnants of the Iran-Iraq War and subsequent environmental catastrophes have become sedimented in both Abadan’s urban infrastructures and its representations. Additionally, the recent designation of Abadan as part of Iran’s free trade zones has enabled new potentialities and a different promise of modernity and prosperity promoted by the Islamic Republic. This paper argues that, set against the backdrop of urban and environmental decline, the iconic image of Abadan produces a disjunctive temporality in which modernity did not fulfill its historical promise--namely progress. The material spatialization of Abadan, its visual and literary representation, along with the availability and flow of commodities constitute a dominant discourse of “derailed modernity” that has become symbolic of Iran’s contemporary moment. This provincial perspective from southwest Iran brings into focus broader debates in present-day Iran centering around contested notions of progress, modernity, history, sovereignty and Iran’s place within a globalized economy.