Iran: Architecture For Changing Societies : An international seminar co-sponsored by the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Iranian Cultural Heritage Organis

In many ways, closed to the outside world since the 1979 Revolution, Iran remains a remarkably rich environment for architecture, both historic and contemporary. A large young population avidly seeks information on trends in the Western world, while the very active Iranian Cultural Heritage Organisation (ICHO) maintains high standards of intervention on the country’s considerable array of monuments. It is in this context that the Architecture For Changing Societies, an international seminar, was created. The seminar was held on October 2002 in Yazd, Iran and was comprised of several Iranian and Muslim organisations, as well as a number of leading figures in contemporary architecture. Participants included Seyyed Mohammad Beheshti, head of the ICHO, as well as such internationally recognised figures as the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki and the American critic Charles Jencks. Architects and participants from Iran engaged for the first time in an open and fruitful discussion with their colleagues fr