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Iradj Moeini

Shahid Beheshti University, Architecture and Urban Planning, Faculty Member

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Iradj Moeini is a qualified architect with a mixed professional and academic background in Iran and the UK. He is currently a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, and a part-time practising architect in London.His main area of research interest is in social, political and cultural aspects of contemporary architecture and built environment. He is also an amateur musician and photographer.

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Papers by Iradj Moeini

Urban Heritage Along the Silk Roads: A Contemporary Reading of Urban Transformation of Historic Cities in the Middle East and Beyond

Urban Heritage Along the Silk Roads, 2020

The ‘Tower-Gate’: A New Type or an Empty Sign

Previous studies have compared the high-tie versus lowtie of IMA and most of them found no signif... more

Making Trouble to Stay With: Architecture and Feminist Pedagogies

Architecture is, at its most basic, about imagining desirable futures. Yet, despite growing aware... more Architecture is, at its most basic, about imagining desirable futures. Yet, despite growing awareness of the lasting and extensive effects that design decisions have in the world, many people remain inadequately represented (or entirely unrepresented) by the profession, which lacks diversity. The faction of those who hold the power to design is still, by and large, comprised of a relatively homogenous group of middle-class white men who dominate not only the profession but also architectural education, even though there is now—in most places—near gender parity among students. How, then, might we—as educators committed to forms and practices of architecture that are inclusive, progressive, egalitarian, socially and environmentally just, and so on—implement and promote feminist pedagogies? Together, this set of short responses by young as well as established gures in the eld, begins to sketch the outlines of an approach to architectural education rooted in feminist politics. Our goal ...

Urban Change in Iran

The Urban Book Series, 2016

The Beverage Drinking Rituals and the Semantics of Alternative Culture: Tehran Cafés

Urban Culture in Tehran

The café has always been a controversial space in the history of modern Iran. It has somehow symb... more The café has always been a controversial space in the history of modern Iran. It has somehow symbolised the modernist place in the city: homes to those who challenge traditional and conventional lifestyles. In fact, cafés have always been the place of the other, those whose lifestyles cannot be accommodated within the mainstream or traditional lifestyles: a place for social resistance. In recent years, after a period of relative absence, these cafés are spreading all over Tehran, albeit in a conservative manner. Some of these cafés employ spatial atmosphere-making strategies to create a character of their own. Going to one of these cafés is more like participating in social actions than eating and drinking. Architectural similarities between these cafés, however, have emerged without any planning. Most of them have been designed by their owners. The use of certain sets of certain semiological codes in them appears to be aiming at attracting certain people and repelling others, as well as conveying their messages without disturbing the establishment. This chapter is focused on the genealogy of these cafés and exploration of their exchanged codes and common language. Keywords Tehran Á Café Á Social Á Resistance Á Semiotic resistance 2.1 History Cafés and teahouses remind us of cobbled alleys of Tehran's bazaar and streets: gateways to the memories of a critical time in Tehran; a time with lasting effects on the Iranian culture and society. Cafés of Tehran evoked the memories of Jomhouri 1 Street and Laleh-zar 2 (Fig. 2.1)Avenue for so long. In the early Pahlavi era, teahouses were a bridge between the past and the future because they preserved old 1 Formerly Shah Street and a place with many cafés. 2 A Tehran street famous for being the symbol of modernity in the end of Qajar era. This street was famous for its bars, cafés, casinos, cinemas and theaters, all shut down since 1979 revolution in Iran.

Power and Resistance: Eternal Duality

This chapter reviews the historic inception and development of Tehran alternative culture, puttin... more This chapter reviews the historic inception and development of Tehran alternative culture, putting it in the context of theories of de Cetreau, Fiske, Lefebvre and others. Making grounds for observations of the following chapters, it discusses how the everyday life and the consumption of space become battlegrounds for the alternative culture, and how culture related built environments of contemporary Tehran are shaped or reshaped in a rather bottom-up manner, in defiance to the officially recognised and promoted culture, to reclaim territories for the ignored and suppressed alternative subcultures without elevating their resistance to any form of head-on confrontation with the establishment.

A Genealogy of Tehran’s Art Galleries: A History of the (Home-) Studio

The art scene and its spaces in Tehran enjoy various degrees of recognition from official, permit... more The art scene and its spaces in Tehran enjoy various degrees of recognition from official, permitted, registered models to unofficial practices. Artistic practices experience a blurred division between the official and the unofficial, and between visibility and invisibility. The complex and multifold conditions in which alternative and non-market-driven artists work leave them striving for survival strategies among which spatial and architectural tactics play a key role. Whether deliberately or not, the working strategies of alternative artistic practices in Tehran employ architecture as one of their main instruments of liberation.

Can Modern Heritage Construct A Sensible Cultural Identity? Iranian Oil Industries and the Practice of Place Making

The Urban Book Series, 2019

The processes of urban modernisation have frequently been vilified in developing countries, and f... more The processes of urban modernisation have frequently been vilified in developing countries, and for good reasons. They are generally seen as the results of top-down decision makings and a skin-deep, out of place political will to modernise communities without having its prerequisites in place. This kind of modernisation is prone to the risks of disrupting organically and historically developed settlements and alienating people from their physical context. They are likely, as they have often been in Iran, to prioritise efficiency, facilitated traffic flows and a modernised way of development in general, over the sustainability of communities and their well-being. The question is, however, what if there is no built environment tradition in place? What if a new community is shaping around emerging forms of production in places with no established traditions of built environment? Can such new developments create a sense of attachment rather than alienation among their dwellers—unlike wh...

The Role of Library in a School of Architecture, A Study of the Built Environment Library* of SBU

The swing of the pendulum between centralization and decentralization of the higher education (HE... more The swing of the pendulum between centralization and decentralization of the higher education (HE) system has generally been towards the former in the Iranian context in the past decade. This has prompted some academics, particularly those who find their disciplines left out to react by highlighting intrinsic differences in teaching and studying methods across the HE spectrum. Built Environment disciplines are no exceptions in this regard as their interdisciplinary nature has always made it difficult to classify them as science, art or engineering, and hence to expect research and study methods associated with either. The present research initially started not to highlight the differences between Built Environment and other libraries, but to scrutinize the ways in which this particular library is used. Further examinations cast light on managerial and cultural issues behind what authors believe to be the underuse of the library. However, the research also highlighted possible discip...

A Multifaceted Reading Culture: Tehran Alternative Booksellers and the Mainstream

Studying the history of booksellers in modern Tehran, one can categorise them into two main group... more Studying the history of booksellers in modern Tehran, one can categorise them into two main groups of ‘power associated’ and ‘alternative’ sellers. Enjoying some form of official support, the former group can in turn be divided into religious and commercial bookshops. The alternative bookshops, on the other hand, can be divided into three groups of official, semi-official (second-hand sellers) and unofficial (bookstall or ‘Basaati’s) sellers. Although these three types may seem different in the ways in which they serve their customers, they share the goal of keeping the alternative network alive and supplying forgotten and unauthorised titles for niche customers. These booksellers have developed their own territories, architecture and atmosphere attracting customers with their special locations, displays and cultural events. They have contributed to the formation of communities of like-minded readers.

Making Trouble to Stay With: Architecture and Feminist Pedagogies (Field, 2017)

Field: a Free Journal for Architecture vol. 7, no. 1 (Nov. 2017): 84-100., 2017

Architecture is, at its most basic, about imagining desirable futures. Yet, despite growing aware... more Architecture is, at its most basic, about imagining desirable futures. Yet, despite growing awareness of the lasting and extensive effects that design decisions have in the world, many people remain inadequately represented (or entirely unrepresented) by the profession, which lacks diversity. The faction of those who hold the power to design is still, by and large, comprised of a relatively homogenous group of middle-class, white men who dominate not only the profession but also architectural education, even though there is now—in most places—near gender parity among students. How, then, might we—as educators committed to forms and practices of architecture that are inclusive, progressive, egalitarian, socially and environmentally just, and so on—implement and promote feminist pedagogies? Together, this set of short responses by young as well as established figures in the field, begins to sketch the outlines of an approach to architectural education rooted in feminist politics. Our ...

The Beverage Drinking Rituals and the Semantics of Alternative Culture: Tehran Cafés

The cafe has always been a controversial space in the history of modern Iran. It has somehow symb... more The cafe has always been a controversial space in the history of modern Iran. It has somehow symbolised the modernist place in the city: homes to those who challenge traditional and conventional lifestyles. In fact, cafes have always been the place of the other, those whose lifestyles cannot be accommodated within the mainstream or traditional lifestyles: a place for social resistance. In recent years, after a period of relative absence, these cafes are spreading all over Tehran, albeit in a conservative manner. Some of these cafes employ spatial atmosphere-making strategies to create a character of their own. Going to one of these cafes is more like participating in social actions than eating and drinking. Architectural similarities between these cafes, however, have emerged without any planning. Most of them have been designed by their owners. The use of certain sets of certain semiological codes in them appears to be aiming at attracting certain people and repelling others, as we...

Urban Culture in Tehran: Urban Processes in Unofficial Cultural Spaces

This book studies the production of urban culture in Tehran after 1979. It analyzes urban resista... more This book studies the production of urban culture in Tehran after 1979. It analyzes urban resistance and urban processes in underground cultural spaces: bookshops, cafes and art galleries. The intended audience is architects and urban planners interested in socio-political aspects of bottom-up space formation, but also those in humanities and particularly cultural studies. The idea of the book reflects architectural criticism and bottom-up processes of space formation. It analyzes alternative, non-official ways of forming cultural spaces in Tehran and the way they resist formally endorsed culture. Cafes, bookshops and galleries, each take various and different sets of strategies to constitute their territory and their communities within the city. From temporarily occupying street corners (booksellers) to constitution of an underground network of unfixed meeting points, to using the modern paradigms of ownership and the idea of private property, primarily as a political tool for mana...

The Islamic Utopia and the Contemporary Statesmanship: The Strange Case of Tehran’s New Cultural District

The International Journal of the Constructed Environment

Capitalism vs. Capitalism : Urban Commodification in Tehran and its Global Affinities

The International Journal of the Constructed Environment

Final Reflections: Anachronisms, Ever-Present Questions and Specificities

Urban Culture in Tehran

Salvation by Design?: An Iranian Experiment with the Pedagogy of Feminism-informed Architecture

The International Journal of Design Education

An Educational Application Based on Virtual Reality Technology for Learning Architectural Details: Challenges and Benefits

International Journal of Architectural Research: ArchNet-IJAR

Architectural learning is intensely multifaceted and faces many challenges. Educational theories ... more Architectural learning is intensely multifaceted and faces many challenges. Educational theories such as Problem Based Learning, Flipped Learning, Learning Styles theory, and Experiential Learning theory are researchers’ responses to those challenges. In fact, many of these theories need proper means in order to be effectively applied in architectural education. Moreover, the possibilities provided by Virtual Reality (VR) Technology, combined with the complex intrinsic properties of architectural pedagogy, place this technology under architecture researchers’ constant watch. With its experiential nature, VR technology can improve architectural students’ learning. Although the study of VR applications for educational purposes is not new, this is rarely studied in the light of emerging learning theories in architectural education. In response, an educational application called LADUVR (“Learning Architectural Details Using Virtual Reality Technology”) has been designed by the authors t...

The Moment of Environmental Ethics; the Moment of Drift?

Kimiya Ye Honar, Sep 15, 2014

An Educational Application Based on Virtual Reality Technology for Learning Architectural Details: Challenges and Benefits

International Journal of Architectural Research: ArchNet-IJAR

Architectural learning is intensely multifaceted and faces many challenges. Educational theories ... more Architectural learning is intensely multifaceted and faces many challenges. Educational theories such as Problem Based Learning, Flipped Learning, Learning Styles theory, and Experiential Learning theory are researchers’ responses to those challenges. In fact, many of these theories need proper means in order to be effectively applied in architectural education. Moreover, the possibilities provided by Virtual Reality (VR) Technology, combined with the complex intrinsic properties of architectural pedagogy, place this technology under architecture researchers’ constant watch. With its experiential nature, VR technology can improve architectural students’ learning. Although the study of VR applications for educational purposes is not new, this is rarely studied in the light of emerging learning theories in architectural education. In response, an educational application called LADUVR (“Learning Architectural Details Using Virtual Reality Technology”) has been designed by the authors t...

Urban Heritage Along the Silk Roads: A Contemporary Reading of Urban Transformation of Historic Cities in the Middle East and Beyond

Urban Heritage Along the Silk Roads, 2020

The ‘Tower-Gate’: A New Type or an Empty Sign

Previous studies have compared the high-tie versus lowtie of IMA and most of them found no signif... more

Making Trouble to Stay With: Architecture and Feminist Pedagogies

Architecture is, at its most basic, about imagining desirable futures. Yet, despite growing aware... more Architecture is, at its most basic, about imagining desirable futures. Yet, despite growing awareness of the lasting and extensive effects that design decisions have in the world, many people remain inadequately represented (or entirely unrepresented) by the profession, which lacks diversity. The faction of those who hold the power to design is still, by and large, comprised of a relatively homogenous group of middle-class white men who dominate not only the profession but also architectural education, even though there is now—in most places—near gender parity among students. How, then, might we—as educators committed to forms and practices of architecture that are inclusive, progressive, egalitarian, socially and environmentally just, and so on—implement and promote feminist pedagogies? Together, this set of short responses by young as well as established gures in the eld, begins to sketch the outlines of an approach to architectural education rooted in feminist politics. Our goal ...

Urban Change in Iran

The Urban Book Series, 2016

The Beverage Drinking Rituals and the Semantics of Alternative Culture: Tehran Cafés

Urban Culture in Tehran

The café has always been a controversial space in the history of modern Iran. It has somehow symb... more The café has always been a controversial space in the history of modern Iran. It has somehow symbolised the modernist place in the city: homes to those who challenge traditional and conventional lifestyles. In fact, cafés have always been the place of the other, those whose lifestyles cannot be accommodated within the mainstream or traditional lifestyles: a place for social resistance. In recent years, after a period of relative absence, these cafés are spreading all over Tehran, albeit in a conservative manner. Some of these cafés employ spatial atmosphere-making strategies to create a character of their own. Going to one of these cafés is more like participating in social actions than eating and drinking. Architectural similarities between these cafés, however, have emerged without any planning. Most of them have been designed by their owners. The use of certain sets of certain semiological codes in them appears to be aiming at attracting certain people and repelling others, as well as conveying their messages without disturbing the establishment. This chapter is focused on the genealogy of these cafés and exploration of their exchanged codes and common language. Keywords Tehran Á Café Á Social Á Resistance Á Semiotic resistance 2.1 History Cafés and teahouses remind us of cobbled alleys of Tehran's bazaar and streets: gateways to the memories of a critical time in Tehran; a time with lasting effects on the Iranian culture and society. Cafés of Tehran evoked the memories of Jomhouri 1 Street and Laleh-zar 2 (Fig. 2.1)Avenue for so long. In the early Pahlavi era, teahouses were a bridge between the past and the future because they preserved old 1 Formerly Shah Street and a place with many cafés. 2 A Tehran street famous for being the symbol of modernity in the end of Qajar era. This street was famous for its bars, cafés, casinos, cinemas and theaters, all shut down since 1979 revolution in Iran.

Power and Resistance: Eternal Duality

This chapter reviews the historic inception and development of Tehran alternative culture, puttin... more This chapter reviews the historic inception and development of Tehran alternative culture, putting it in the context of theories of de Cetreau, Fiske, Lefebvre and others. Making grounds for observations of the following chapters, it discusses how the everyday life and the consumption of space become battlegrounds for the alternative culture, and how culture related built environments of contemporary Tehran are shaped or reshaped in a rather bottom-up manner, in defiance to the officially recognised and promoted culture, to reclaim territories for the ignored and suppressed alternative subcultures without elevating their resistance to any form of head-on confrontation with the establishment.

A Genealogy of Tehran’s Art Galleries: A History of the (Home-) Studio

The art scene and its spaces in Tehran enjoy various degrees of recognition from official, permit... more The art scene and its spaces in Tehran enjoy various degrees of recognition from official, permitted, registered models to unofficial practices. Artistic practices experience a blurred division between the official and the unofficial, and between visibility and invisibility. The complex and multifold conditions in which alternative and non-market-driven artists work leave them striving for survival strategies among which spatial and architectural tactics play a key role. Whether deliberately or not, the working strategies of alternative artistic practices in Tehran employ architecture as one of their main instruments of liberation.

Can Modern Heritage Construct A Sensible Cultural Identity? Iranian Oil Industries and the Practice of Place Making

The Urban Book Series, 2019

The processes of urban modernisation have frequently been vilified in developing countries, and f... more The processes of urban modernisation have frequently been vilified in developing countries, and for good reasons. They are generally seen as the results of top-down decision makings and a skin-deep, out of place political will to modernise communities without having its prerequisites in place. This kind of modernisation is prone to the risks of disrupting organically and historically developed settlements and alienating people from their physical context. They are likely, as they have often been in Iran, to prioritise efficiency, facilitated traffic flows and a modernised way of development in general, over the sustainability of communities and their well-being. The question is, however, what if there is no built environment tradition in place? What if a new community is shaping around emerging forms of production in places with no established traditions of built environment? Can such new developments create a sense of attachment rather than alienation among their dwellers—unlike wh...

The Role of Library in a School of Architecture, A Study of the Built Environment Library* of SBU

The swing of the pendulum between centralization and decentralization of the higher education (HE... more The swing of the pendulum between centralization and decentralization of the higher education (HE) system has generally been towards the former in the Iranian context in the past decade. This has prompted some academics, particularly those who find their disciplines left out to react by highlighting intrinsic differences in teaching and studying methods across the HE spectrum. Built Environment disciplines are no exceptions in this regard as their interdisciplinary nature has always made it difficult to classify them as science, art or engineering, and hence to expect research and study methods associated with either. The present research initially started not to highlight the differences between Built Environment and other libraries, but to scrutinize the ways in which this particular library is used. Further examinations cast light on managerial and cultural issues behind what authors believe to be the underuse of the library. However, the research also highlighted possible discip...

A Multifaceted Reading Culture: Tehran Alternative Booksellers and the Mainstream

Studying the history of booksellers in modern Tehran, one can categorise them into two main group... more Studying the history of booksellers in modern Tehran, one can categorise them into two main groups of ‘power associated’ and ‘alternative’ sellers. Enjoying some form of official support, the former group can in turn be divided into religious and commercial bookshops. The alternative bookshops, on the other hand, can be divided into three groups of official, semi-official (second-hand sellers) and unofficial (bookstall or ‘Basaati’s) sellers. Although these three types may seem different in the ways in which they serve their customers, they share the goal of keeping the alternative network alive and supplying forgotten and unauthorised titles for niche customers. These booksellers have developed their own territories, architecture and atmosphere attracting customers with their special locations, displays and cultural events. They have contributed to the formation of communities of like-minded readers.

Making Trouble to Stay With: Architecture and Feminist Pedagogies (Field, 2017)

Field: a Free Journal for Architecture vol. 7, no. 1 (Nov. 2017): 84-100., 2017

Architecture is, at its most basic, about imagining desirable futures. Yet, despite growing aware... more Architecture is, at its most basic, about imagining desirable futures. Yet, despite growing awareness of the lasting and extensive effects that design decisions have in the world, many people remain inadequately represented (or entirely unrepresented) by the profession, which lacks diversity. The faction of those who hold the power to design is still, by and large, comprised of a relatively homogenous group of middle-class, white men who dominate not only the profession but also architectural education, even though there is now—in most places—near gender parity among students. How, then, might we—as educators committed to forms and practices of architecture that are inclusive, progressive, egalitarian, socially and environmentally just, and so on—implement and promote feminist pedagogies? Together, this set of short responses by young as well as established figures in the field, begins to sketch the outlines of an approach to architectural education rooted in feminist politics. Our ...

The Beverage Drinking Rituals and the Semantics of Alternative Culture: Tehran Cafés

The cafe has always been a controversial space in the history of modern Iran. It has somehow symb... more The cafe has always been a controversial space in the history of modern Iran. It has somehow symbolised the modernist place in the city: homes to those who challenge traditional and conventional lifestyles. In fact, cafes have always been the place of the other, those whose lifestyles cannot be accommodated within the mainstream or traditional lifestyles: a place for social resistance. In recent years, after a period of relative absence, these cafes are spreading all over Tehran, albeit in a conservative manner. Some of these cafes employ spatial atmosphere-making strategies to create a character of their own. Going to one of these cafes is more like participating in social actions than eating and drinking. Architectural similarities between these cafes, however, have emerged without any planning. Most of them have been designed by their owners. The use of certain sets of certain semiological codes in them appears to be aiming at attracting certain people and repelling others, as we...

Urban Culture in Tehran: Urban Processes in Unofficial Cultural Spaces

This book studies the production of urban culture in Tehran after 1979. It analyzes urban resista... more This book studies the production of urban culture in Tehran after 1979. It analyzes urban resistance and urban processes in underground cultural spaces: bookshops, cafes and art galleries. The intended audience is architects and urban planners interested in socio-political aspects of bottom-up space formation, but also those in humanities and particularly cultural studies. The idea of the book reflects architectural criticism and bottom-up processes of space formation. It analyzes alternative, non-official ways of forming cultural spaces in Tehran and the way they resist formally endorsed culture. Cafes, bookshops and galleries, each take various and different sets of strategies to constitute their territory and their communities within the city. From temporarily occupying street corners (booksellers) to constitution of an underground network of unfixed meeting points, to using the modern paradigms of ownership and the idea of private property, primarily as a political tool for mana...

The Islamic Utopia and the Contemporary Statesmanship: The Strange Case of Tehran’s New Cultural District

The International Journal of the Constructed Environment

Capitalism vs. Capitalism : Urban Commodification in Tehran and its Global Affinities

The International Journal of the Constructed Environment

Final Reflections: Anachronisms, Ever-Present Questions and Specificities

Urban Culture in Tehran

Salvation by Design?: An Iranian Experiment with the Pedagogy of Feminism-informed Architecture

The International Journal of Design Education

An Educational Application Based on Virtual Reality Technology for Learning Architectural Details: Challenges and Benefits

International Journal of Architectural Research: ArchNet-IJAR

Architectural learning is intensely multifaceted and faces many challenges. Educational theories ... more Architectural learning is intensely multifaceted and faces many challenges. Educational theories such as Problem Based Learning, Flipped Learning, Learning Styles theory, and Experiential Learning theory are researchers’ responses to those challenges. In fact, many of these theories need proper means in order to be effectively applied in architectural education. Moreover, the possibilities provided by Virtual Reality (VR) Technology, combined with the complex intrinsic properties of architectural pedagogy, place this technology under architecture researchers’ constant watch. With its experiential nature, VR technology can improve architectural students’ learning. Although the study of VR applications for educational purposes is not new, this is rarely studied in the light of emerging learning theories in architectural education. In response, an educational application called LADUVR (“Learning Architectural Details Using Virtual Reality Technology”) has been designed by the authors t...

The Moment of Environmental Ethics; the Moment of Drift?

Kimiya Ye Honar, Sep 15, 2014

An Educational Application Based on Virtual Reality Technology for Learning Architectural Details: Challenges and Benefits

International Journal of Architectural Research: ArchNet-IJAR

Architectural learning is intensely multifaceted and faces many challenges. Educational theories ... more Architectural learning is intensely multifaceted and faces many challenges. Educational theories such as Problem Based Learning, Flipped Learning, Learning Styles theory, and Experiential Learning theory are researchers’ responses to those challenges. In fact, many of these theories need proper means in order to be effectively applied in architectural education. Moreover, the possibilities provided by Virtual Reality (VR) Technology, combined with the complex intrinsic properties of architectural pedagogy, place this technology under architecture researchers’ constant watch. With its experiential nature, VR technology can improve architectural students’ learning. Although the study of VR applications for educational purposes is not new, this is rarely studied in the light of emerging learning theories in architectural education. In response, an educational application called LADUVR (“Learning Architectural Details Using Virtual Reality Technology”) has been designed by the authors t...