ABSTRACT
In a broad sense, the history of Iran over the last 150 years has been infused, on the one hand, by the challenge by the West, modernization and modernity (tajaddud); and on the other, by the East, nationalism and Tradition (Sunnat).1 This challenge encompasses all the disciplines, from religion and politics up to urban life and architectural buildings. However, in the field of urban planning and urban life, the case of Naserid Tehran, particularly in mid-to-late nineteenth century, is the main scene for the manifestation and realization of this challenge. Until 1868, Tehran was a walled city with typical urban features seen in
many other Persian cities such as residential quarters, citadel, bazaar and Friday Mosque. This was the year when Naser al-Din Shah, the king of Persia, ordered the expansion of the city based on a new plan which was inspired by the old fortifications of Paris and other French cities. This reshaping phase, however, did not limit itself to westernization of the city’s formal configuration, but also influenced the organization of urban life, with the physical reforms to Tehran culminating in a somehow visibly polarized social structure that was based on an upper-class quarter in the north of the city and lower-class quarters in the south. A main source that enables penetration into this controversial life-world is
the diaries and reports of the Europeans who visited Tehran at this time period.2 A review of this literature shows that the conflict was immediately observable and comprehensible to foreigners and strangers. It also shows how they envisaged discovering stereotypical expectations in the cities and how, in many cases, these pre-suppositions failed to be observed. This chapter focuses on the Tehran of the late Naserid period (the late
nineteenth century) and investigates the urban life and urban morphology of the city. It clarifies how the trend of westernization affected the structure of the city and created a bi-polar city in which binaries of Old and New, East and West and ‘Orient’ and ‘Occident’ subsisted alongside one another in continuous challenge and conflict. Based on a literature review and thematic analysis of three reports by western travellers-Curzon, who stayed in Tehran in the years 1889-90, A.V. Williams Jackson who visited Tehran in 1903, and Brandley-Birt who visited Tehran in 1906-this chapter investigates the image
of the ‘Occident’ and the ‘Orient’, and their continuous dialogue, in the way they have been conceived, understood and portrayed through the travellers’ reports. In this sense, the aim is not problematizing the binary of Occident and Orient and its relevancy and validity, but showing how this terminology has been employed, reproduced and reflected in the way the city has been perceived by these western travellers.3 I also aim to show how the transformation from a traditional mono-polar city into a westernized, bi-polar one has become incorporated in the physical structure and morphology of the city.
