ABSTRACT
The significance of Iran for the ‘Big Three’ was sharply manifested in the 1943 Tehran Conference, a meeting between the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain during World War II. For decades, Iran had been predominantly the matter of interest for Britain and Russia because of its position as the buffer state between the two empires. Whereas for the developed countries, access to raw materials as well as increasing their leverage would be realised through investments and technical improvements in a region, the settlements built to serve the established institutions were to become the instruments of development. From an Iranian perspective, there was a desire for the planning and design to respond to Iranian Islamic culture and traditional lifestyle (privacy, provision of mosques, nature of public space, design of dwellings to separate inward-focused and outward-focused spaces, etc.).
