In search of continuity with the past: Houshang Seyhoun’s Ferdowsi mausoleum complex as cultural landscape

Architecture is the meeting point of development, culture, and the environment. Development usually challenges traditions and leads to environmental and cultural concerns. In the 1970s public architecture in Iran played a significant role in re-imagining a national cultural landscape. The paper examines the Beaux Arts-trained architect Houshang Seyhoun’s (1964–68) design for the reconstructed mausoleum of Ferdowsi, the Iranian national poet. The design consisted of an interpretative gallery, tea-house, and performance space as well as an adjacent restaurant. This was one of the many public projects that went through multiple stages of life from the time of its conception through to the Islamic Revolution, which substantially transformed its social and political context leading to the present. The paper attempts to show the divergent political forces that operate on perceptions of a cultural landscape at a national scale.