ABSTRACT
This chapter firstly undertakes an in-depth investigation into the history of socialist city planning which will bring into light the principles adopted for the Aryashahr company town’s design. Thus, the socialist cities during the pre-Stalin and Stalin decades will be briefly reviewed to understand better what followed in the post-Stalin period. Subsequently, the debates in the Soviet Union between the two groups of Urbanists and Deurbanists before the period of Stalin’s supremacy is discussed. Thenceforth, the chapter will explain Stalin’s rule over architecture and town planning through the designation of socialist realism as the state’s official style. Furthermore, the return of modernism to the Soviet Union by Nikita Khrushchev and the adoption of ‘Microrayons’ as the state’s official town planning unit will be described. By introducing the models and influential figures of this period, namely Nourodin Kianouri and George Gradov, the chapter provides an extensive exposition of the communist modern planning and architecture principles applied in the design of Aryashahr by the Soviet consultants. Finally, the general structure of the town, the Microrayons designed and built before the Islamic Revolution, and the extent to which Aryashahr was a transplantation of the aforementioned Soviet principles to an Iranian context are thoroughly discussed.
