Rethinking the Architecture of Shushtar-Nou: A Forgotten Episode of Architectural Regionalism in 1970s Iran

Oil revenues in the late 1960s enabled the Iranian government to fund several international architecture congresses. Throughout the 1970s, a group of young Iranian architects organized a series of architectural events, among them the second Iran International Congress of Architects (IICA), held in Persepolis-Shiraz in 1974. This Congress resulted in the 'Habitat Bill of Rights', a CIAM-like charter submitted by the Iranian government to the first UN-conference on 'Human Settlements' in 1976. This article reveals the 1974 IICA's instrumental role in shaping the discourse on architectural regionalism in the design for dwelling and human habitats, approaches to the relationship between tradition and modernity, and importantly how the architecture of Kamran Diba aimed to bridge the gap between local culture and internationalism, by forming a novel synthesis of these two approaches. To illustrate the latter, this article examines the design and development of Shushtar-Nou, a new community model designed by Diba in southwest Iran. Implicit within its design is Diba's view on the Congress debates and his goal in developing a malleable environment that accommodated growth and change over time, while preserving its core attributes.