Hossein Amanat - Eminent Persians by Abbas Milani
This chapter on Hossein Amanat is from Dr. Abbas Milani's Eminent Persians (Syracuse University Press, 2008), shared with the author's permission.
HOSEYN AMANAT WAS THE WUNDERKIND of modern Iranian architecture. He was just out of college, still living in his childhood bedroom in his parents’ home, when he won the most prestigious architectural competition of his generation. His design, completed within the two-month deadline and finished at the end of forty-eight hours of almost incessant work, was chosen for a building that was initially intended to celebrate twenty-five hundred years of monarchy. But the structure, called Shahyad—yad is Persian for memory—not only became the icon of Tehran and Iran but was inexorably transformed into the most recognizable symbol and metaphor of the shah’s era and his vision for Iran. Amanat was twenty-two years old when he won the design competition.
As an iconic structure, Shahyad became the subject of some satire and considerable criticism. Inflated stories about its allegedly exorbitant cost and about massive financial malfeasance among those involved in its construction made it one of the favorite subjects of the opposition’s campaign of whispers and gossip. In fact, according to Hoseyn Amanat, the entire structure cost nearly 8 million tooman (a little more than $1 million). The sum seems particularly paltry when we remember that a few years later, when the shah went on what the CIA called his “lending binge,” Iran gave away almost 1.3 billion dollars.
But even those who did not subscribe to sundry financial allegations used Shahyad to poke fun at the shah’s regime. In Ebrahim Golestan’s subversive Mysteries of the Ghost Valley, the nouveau riche “man” builds a phallic monument to his own grandeur, and the structure mischievously but unmistakably conjures the image of Shahyad. In fact so enduring has the iconic influence of Shahyad been that even after the revolution, when the building—like every other site bearing a name from the ancien régime—was renamed Azadi, or Freedom, it continued to be identified with the shah and his days. As nostalgia for the past has increased in recent years, a touch of romance and a hint of reification have come to surround Shahyad. Not a week passes that Amanat does not receive some note about his role in the building. Sometimes it is a technical inquiry, other times it is professional praise, often from students of art and architecture. But neither the shah’s desire to build the monument, nor the public’s response to it, are unusual in the larger context of Iranian history.
For much of Iran’s history, monarchs tried to leave their mark on the nation’s memory and on history by erecting monuments to their own grandeur. Tag-e Kasra, easily the largest arch of its time, was a tragic reminder of Iran’s lost pre-Islamic imperial grandeur. Isfahan had its majestic mosques and its Nagshe-Jahan (map of the world), a large square designed according to the relative topography of power between the mosque, the bazaar, and the court—the traditional pillars of power in Iran. It continues to be a reminder of Shah Abbas and his grandeur. Finally Nasir al-din Shah ordered the construction of Shamsal-Amare, Tehran’s first modern building, which had on its façade the city’s first public clock. Each of these monuments capture in the pithy and permanent alphabet of architecture the geist and ethos of their time. Shahyad was no less eloquent in its cultural semiotics. It heralded a Tehran transformed by changing times. It creatively bridged the city’s tormented past to its triumphant mood about its future.
Tehran is said to be eight thousand years old; but as a modern city and capital of the country, it is but a novice. Caught in the crosscurrents of history and marauding tribes and armies, the original inhabitants of this small village in medieval Iran built their homes underground, thus the name “Tahran,” or, literally, “Undergrounders.” When enemies came, as they did in 1220 to destroy Rey, Tehran’s grand and prosperous neighbor, the troglodytes of Tehran, “took refuge in their subterranean homes, and came out only when they felt safe.”
By 1971, when the construction of Shahyad was completed, Tehran was fired by the power of petrodollars. The shah’s new and vigorous “open-door” policy meant to encourage the world to visit and invest in Iran. It was a city enamored of America and obsessed with its own past. Shahyad became the perfect metaphor for the many cultural paradoxes that were the rapidly changing Tehran. It was, not incidentally, built at the point where Eisenhower Avenue ended and the road to the airport began.
It had simple pre-Islamic arches reminiscent of Tag-e Kasra, along with ornate Islamic domes decorated with sophisticated arabesque designs. Shahyad had, like the city it represented, its own “underground.” Rooted and grounded, yet defiantly high-flying and open to the world, Shahyad was a gateway to the future and a grand celebration of the past. In Shahyad, like other artifacts of the modernist age, form was content, and the building’s form cleverly drew inspiration from its symbolic function.
Designing Shahyad made Amanat an overnight sensation in Iran. A few years after winning that competition, he was chosen to design some of the most sacred sites of the Bahai faith. In 1972, for example, he was invited to design and build the Seat of the Universal House of Justice in Haifa, the administrative headquarters for the Bahai faith. Less than a decade later, he was asked to design the Bahai Temple of Faith in Samoa. These temples, built around the world, are dedicated to the idea that religions that claim to come from the same divine source are ultimately united in their ethos and ends. Amanat went on to design several other important Bahai sacred sites and structures, including a series of buildings on Mount Carmel. They were a radical departure from his unique form of modernism and were recognizably inspired by the Greek classical tradition of graceful parallel columns and serene surrounding gardens. While winning the Shahyad competition was simply a sign of the precocious maturity, simplicity, and sophistication of his style, his dedication to building the Bahai sites were rooted in his unfaltering devotion to the religion.
Hoseyn Amanat’s family had a storied dedication to the new faith. Both his parents came from families that had been early, dedicated converts to the Bahai religion. He was born on March 18, 1942 (27 Esfand 1320). His father was a merchant of the bazaar who eventually branched out into industry, establishing one of Iran’s first factories producing heavy canvas. He also invested heavily in real estate, and by the time of the 1979 revolution, he was a rich man. But he was also deeply dedicated to the cause of the Bahai religion. His family had been one of the many Jewish families in the city of Kashan who converted to Bahaism. The father had been, in his youth, something of a scholar manqué. He had studied Jewish, Christian, and Bahai theologies closely. From a reading of chapters in the Bible promising the return of a messiah, he, along with his parents, had come to conclude that Mohammad Bab, the prophet and founder of the Bahai religion, was the promised messiah, and Bahaism the promised faith of redemption.
Because of the tenacity of the family’s identification with the Bahai religion, they were forced to leave Iran on the eve of the Islamic Revolution and settle for a life of exile. Their entire wealth, valued in millions of dollars, was, because of their unabashed religious affiliation, confiscated by the Islamic regime. The father spent the last ten years of his life nurturing his hitherto dormant scholarly desires. After years of research, he wrote a lengthy, multivolume account of the lives of the Jewish families in the city of his birth, Kashan, who had converted to Bahaism at the turn of the century. The book has not been published. If the father’s scholarly ambition has remained a family secret, one of the sons, Abbas Amanat, has already established his reputation as the most authoritative historian of the early rise of the Bahai faith and of the Babi movement.
Hoseyn was the oldest child of the family. He first enrolled in a school near their family home, but after three years he was transferred to a better school, far away from home. Then he went to Alborz high school. Throughout his school years, he was among the top four or five students in his class. He also engaged in a number of extracurricular activities. While photography was, from an early age, his avocation (he had his own darkroom), foreign languages soon became his passion. By the time he finished high school, he was a polyglot. In fact, the foreign-language school he attended used him to showcase their ability to teach language. On one occasion he appeared on stage and conversed with Professor Varasteh, the school’s founder, in German, English, French, and Turkish. Amanat had also studied some Arabic, as he wanted to read sacred Bahai texts, which are often steeped in Arabic terms.
In spite of these many intellectual affinities, a formative part of Amanat’s identity was his faith. Although in his high school years Iran was caught in the passion of politics, he steered clear of political engagement. “Our faith,” he said, “forbids us to engage in politics. Little can be changed through politics. Changing our ways of thinking is our biggest challenge, and the only way to change the world.” He particularly appreciated the Bahai belief in the unity of humankind, the “idea that we are all leaves of the same branch, fruits of the same tree.”
After high school, he participated in the dread university entrance exam. At the same time, he began to contemplate going to Europe or America. His father wanted him, as well as his other sons, to join him in his business. Hoseyn had other ideas. His scores on the national entrance exam were high enough that he could enroll in Tehran University’s School of Engineering. In those days, acceptance to that school was, after the School of Medicine, the most coveted prize in the Iranian university system. At the same, he registered in the School of Art and Architecture. The decision was more on a whim than willful design. By accident one day early in the school year, he accompanied one of his friends to a studio in the School of Art and Architecture and liked what he saw. “Designing, and doing what architects call ‘rendering,’ appealed to me,” he said.
For a while, he continued attending classes in both schools, but the university registrar’s office eventually noticed his unusual status. He was forced to choose, and by then he was convinced that the School of Engineering, with its bevy of devout revolutionaries and its dour intellectuals infatuated with a cult of poverty, was no place for a young man of his cosmopolitan temperament. The School of Art and Architecture, on the other hand, was reputed to be a den of modernists. Hoseyn saw in his peers a passion to learn about the most recent trends on the international scene. Also, under the direct influence of Hushang Seyhun, the school’s dean, students were deeply steeped in studying, preserving, and promoting classical styles of Persian architecture. Not surprisingly, Hoseyn chose architecture, and in 1966 he graduated at the top of his class. As was customary, he received his prize from the shah. It would not be their last meeting.
Architecture students were required to submit as their final thesis a project of their choice. Hoseyn designed a resort on the coast of the Persian Gulf. In preparation, he traveled widely in the area, and his design integrated the natural contours of the territory. The project suggested that the Persian Gulf area, until then seen only as an arid reservoir of oil, offered great untapped possibilities for tourism. A jury of faculty chose Hoseyn’s design as the best of that academic year. The shah, too, on his visit to offer prizes to the top-graduating students, was keenly interested in both the idea and the design of the resort. Ironically, the runner-up design was for a new seminary in the city of Qom. Before Iran’s plans for turning the Persian Gulf into a tourist haven could become reality, seminarians, led by an exiled ayatollah, helped ferment the revolution of 1979. Hoseyn had won the jury judgment; but the losing competitor had, maybe unwittingly, tapped into alternate forces of Iranian history.
Even before his graduation, Amanat had planned to continue his graduate work in the United States. He was accepted at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s prestigious school of architecture. When he received his prize from the shah, the king asked him what his plans were. “I am leaving for America soon,” Amanat said. A gruff and glum shah retorted, “What is so hot about America that all of you want to go there?” Hoseyn was surprised by the comment but remained committed to his plans.
A few days later, on September 1, 1966, he saw a small advertisement in the corner of the Etela’at, one of Tehran’s daily papers. It announced a competition for the best design for a building commemorating the monarchy. Apparently, Sardar Afkhami, one of the queen’s favored architects, had earlier been asked to submit a design for the building. The shah however, had rejected it and ordered an open competition.
In describing the process of arriving at his final design, Hoseyn said, “As is always the case with my buildings, it begins with a vague, ambiguous idea.” By the time he focused and filtered the ideas mulling in his head, he had less than three days left to put the concept to paper. He worked incessantly and solicited the help of some of his classmates. His bedroom in his parental home doubled as his studio. On the designated deadline hour, without a moment to spare, he turned in his plan.
His idea called for a tower that would conjure Tag-e Kasra but symbolically represent the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty. Around the central building, in the vast surrounding space, each of the great dynasties of the past would be represented by a small yard. Only after going through the past dynasties would a visitor arrive at the monument that stood at the center of the edifice and symbolized the rule of the shah and his father. The grand, curved, apparently supple marble pillars of the monument afforded it the air of a majestic curtain flowing in the breeze. On one side, it lifted the cover of mystery and opened vistas into Iran, while from the opposite vantage point, it opened a wide window to the world waiting outside.
A few eventless weeks passed, and Amanat continued his plans to leave for Illinois. In the meantime, he had designed a house for a friend. One day, as he was on the site talking to the friend, his mother arrived in her car. She looked agitated. “You better come home,” she said, adding in an excited tone that his design had won the competition.
At home, Amanat realized that the jury—which included his one-time teacher, Hushang Seyhun, and Mohsen Forughi—had chosen his design but that the final choice would have to be made by the shah. On the designated day, Amanat and the other finalists were called to the court. They each had to explain their ideas to the shah and the queen. To Amanat’s great joy, the shah confirmed the jury’s choice, but his joy was soon tempered by the realities of bureaucratic and professional corruption and jealousies.
It took about a year before Amanat was actually given a contract to supervise the construction. The long unexplained wait made him despondent. He solicited help from his friends and family. He even decided to seek help from his famous high school principal, Dr. Mohammad Ali Mojtahedi, who was by then rector of Aryamehre University. While offering to help Amanat get the contract, he asked him to design a new library for the university. That library was the first building Amanat actually designed and built in Iran.
Finally, the contract for Shahyad was signed, and, along with Mohsen Forughi, Amanat was given the job of supervising the construction process. The two men were paid a total of 525,000 tooman ($70,000 at the time). The crucial technical task of laying the cement foundation was given to a firm who had just established its international reputation by helping build the famous Sydney Opera House.
After Shahyad, Amanat went on to build a number of other buildings, including libraries and museums, and Iran’s embassy in China. He also began work on the Bahai sacred sites. In the meantime, his private life was changing as well. In 1975 he married Shahnaz Alai. In quick succession, they had three children—two boys and a girl.
Like a deus ex machina in a play, the revolution suddenly changed the arc of Amanat’s life. In November 1979, his wife was pregnant with their son and longed to go to Europe to be with her mother for the delivery. About that time, papers began attacking members of the ancien régime. One paper took aim at Amanat, charging him with a variety of sins. He feared that it was only the beginning of an orchestrated attack and became concerned for his safety. He decided to accompany his wife to Europe and wait out the storm.
What began as a temporary journey gradually turned into permanent exile. After about two years in Europe, Amanat and his family migrated to Canada, settled in Vancouver, and founded an architectural firm that continues to undertake major projects around the world. In spite of many impressive accomplishments in the last two decades, Amanat is still best known as the architect who built Shahyad.