The Bartlett Research Conversations

Home [Un]Making, Tehran, 1925-2018

Azedah A. Zaferani

Supervisors: Barbara Penner and Nina Vollenbroker

Azadeh’s dissertation explores domesticity through the lens of household objects, arguing that there is a dialectical relationship between the way we possess, use and present objects at home and the way we organize and plan cities. Her thesis presents change of governments and their ideological regulations, but also considers how these are adapted within actual homes. These adaptations are examined in the Iranian context through the experiences of three distinct figures, each representing a separate generation, that has been impacted by these changes in the period between 1925 and 2018. 

Azadeh’s thesis unfolds in two distinct parts: Home Making and Home [Un]Making. Part I studies the process of homemaking from the fall of Qajar dynasty and the inauguration of Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1925 to the revolution of 1979 in Tehran. While this part studies the process by which domesticity finds new definitions due to arrival of modernism, Part II, explores the ideologically driven changes made by the post-revolutionary government. Azadeh does this by analyzing the effect of Islamic Marxism, war and international embargo on domesticity and domestic objects and their relationship to ownership, production lines, trade and consumption in Tehran.  

About The Bartlett Research Conversations

The Bartlett School of Architecture’s Research Conversations seminars comprise work-in-progress and upgrade presentations by students undertaking the MPhil/PhD Architectural Design and MPhil/PhD Architectural and Urban History and Theory. All current UCL staff and students are welcome to attend.

Held regularly throughout the academic year, the seminars are attended by the programme directors, Professor Jonathan Hill and Professor Ben Campkin, PhD Coordinators, Dr. Nina Vollenbröker and Dr Sophie Read, and other PhD supervisors.

Image: Newly Imported Singer Sewing Machine. Shahin and Arsineh Basil Collection. Women’s World in Qaja Iran Digital Archive. Harvard University, Middle Eastern Division, Cambridge, MA, USA.