ABSTRACT
It is a universally acknowledged fact that, in Iran, the oil industry has been, and continues to be, the backbone of the country's economy. Although Iran was never officially colonised by Britain, the design and construction in the Persian oil towns was a collateral part of British empire building and was greatly influenced by the British Empire's pervading styles and techniques of architecture in their colonies as well as within the country. Here it is important to refer to two British architects whose works, from the early 1900s, had considerable influence on British suburbs and were also adopted as a source of inspiration in some of the planning schemes of Persian oil towns after 1930s: Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin. It is unquestionable that the influential works of Unwin and Parker for the Garden City Association later became a source of inspiration for the development of the Persian oil towns in the following decades.
