In 1966, a 24-year-old architect who had just graduated from Tehran University hesitantly entered a competition to design a monument to mark the 2,500-year celebration of the founding of the Persian empire.
In hindsight, it was a competition of a lifetime, organised by the shah of Iran, who envisioned that the monument would act as his memorial tower, or Shahyad.
The architect, Hossein Amanat, had no idea that his hastily prepared design, which went on to win the competition, would one day become a focal point of the Iranian capital’s skyline, serving as a backdrop to some of the country’s most turbulent political events.
The 50-metre (164ft) tall structure, now known as the Azadi (Freedom) tower, rode out the 1979 Islamic revolution, an eight-year war with Iraq and the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad-era anti-government demonstrations.
But as his tower prospered, Amanat’s life unravelled.
The monarchy was overthrown in the 1979 revolution, which ushered in an Islamic Republic with Ayatollah Khomeini as supreme leader. The shah, along with many of those believed to be associated with him, left the country and there was a crackdown on the Bahá’í faith, which Amanat practises.
His name was put on a death list, and his belongings were confiscated. He fled Iran and has not returned since.
The Bahá’ís are Iran’s most persecuted religious minority. After the revolution, more than 200 Bahá’ís were executed in Iran because of their religious allegiance. In 1981, the religion was banned. ... In a rare interview discussing his religion, Amanat, who also designed three Bahá’í administrative buildings in Haifa, called on Iran to rethink its approach.
“They should put aside the suspicion,” Amanat, 75, said. “Bahá’ís don’t have any aims to harm the Islamic establishment. They [the authorities] have repeatedly claimed that Bahá’ís are spies, but have they found even a single document of proof? They’ve found nothing. They should let Baha’is live like other Iranians.”
...
Amanat expressed regret for not being able to live in Iran and contribute more to its architecture.
The Azadi tower, he said, was an opportunity to “design modern architecture using old language, to preserve the good things about a culture, leave aside the meaningless parts and create something new and meaningful”. A tribute to “an old human civilisation”, the monument was such “that if this was erected somewhere else it would have no meaning – you can’t put Shahyad in Cairo”.
It took five years for the Azadi tower to be finished. In 1971 the Shah unveiled the tower, having flown to Tehran from the ruins of Persepolis in Shiraz, where he had held an enormous, lavish event to celebrate the Persian empire’s 2,500th birthday.
