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Contestation and Reinvention: Spatial Imaginaries and Protest in Contemporary Iran
Abstract by Dr. Zohreh Soltani On Session XII-27  (Traversing the World)

On Sunday, November 5 at 11:00 am

2023 Annual Meeting

Abstract
This research discusses the potential of an authoritarian monument in becoming a space of public discourse and symbol of solidarity through the case of Azadi tower in Tehran. In so doing, it opens up discussions on the construction of spatial imaginaries as a category of cultural heritage. In the light of the recent protests in Iran and the unprecedented wave of visual, graphic and artistic production that has accompanied the movement, Azadi tower has gained yet another meaning and signification. Azadi tower has had many lives: a monument to Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi (Shahyad) built in 1971, a stage of official processions under Pahlavi, a public space of revolutionary gathering in 1979, a monument to the 1979 revolution (Azadi), a public space of protest in 2009, and a symbol of resistance today. With the case of Azadi, I suggest that in as much as the patriarchal and autocratic monumental space generates profound violence and problematic architectural heritage, there still exists the potential for the generation and production of new heritage through spatial imaginaries of the same spaces; a generative and speculative monumental space. Furthermore, the popular activation of autocratic monuments, as an undoing of cultural heritage, creates an intersectional identity where the margin becomes the center, the patriarch becomes the matriarch, and the historical becomes fictional. In other words, the patriarchal monument of the past is reborn as the feminist monument of the future. With a research approach that relies on piecemeal depictions of this space rather than its grand narrative, using architectural documents, municipal reports, sketches, state-sponsored posters, but also contemporary visual production, the methodology of this work is also an attempt in diverging from the traditional archive-based, western theory-framed architectural research in non-western contexts to open the grounds for alternative voices. In this sense, architectural heritage opens up new possibilities through not just its various lived experiences, but also through its yet-to-be-lived subjective imaginaries.
Discipline
Architecture & Urban Planning
Art/Art History
Geographic Area
Iran
Sub Area
None