Landscape Architecture in Tehran Today

Suffering from disorder and chaos, Tehran is a city capable of introduced as one of the most beautiful cities in the world for its historical and geographical capacities. Unfortunately, in the modern era and after the Islamic Revolution when urban development destiny started to depend on engineers due to their increasing authority in urban management, culture role was undermined and Tehran underlying capacity remained uncovered and urban development management and engineers, who played a role in legitimizing the city management authoritarian, managed the main urban trend in Tehran. While quantitative standards are highly improved in Tehran development, qualitative impairments are evident. Critics of senior officials of the Islamic Republic in Tehran and academics, professionals, intellectuals and the general public’s dissatisfaction of life quality has led to effective institutions in Tehran management, consisting of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, the provincial, city and municipal council of Tehran to choose similar slogans and methods for urban developments. Urban management approach was to develop new types of landscape architecture in the city and increasing communal spaces. However, if this approach is merely considered quantitatively and the qualitative aspects are considered as subelements decorative, we will witness a historic cultural rupture indicative of dissatisfaction in architecture and urban quality. Integration of the mentioned situation in cities of Iran and specially Tehran has created a specific landscape. Convinced that cultural developments, especially in hardware areas such as architecture and town, are quite gradual, municipal architectural management in Tehran requires the evaluation of the status quo. The most important results of 14 independent studies on landscape architecture projects of Tehran undergone by MANZAR journal are as follows: Lack of strategy: Most of the projects lacked a specific strategy for the typology of created public space; Strategies that lead the projects in terms of compatible development environment, pedestrians’ life extending, defining city milestones, displaying science and technology and preservation of the historical identity. Minor location: Most projects of Tehran landscape architecture endure minor locating independent of overall and contextual programs. Employer’s interference: selection of consultants and design leading is not a professional criterion. Economic preferences (tender) and consultant employer relations (previous work experience) are the most important selection factors.   Unprofessional consultant: The professional teams in most cases lack the expertise due to two main reasons: first, direct employer’s or supervisors’ unconventional interference in the design process. Second: reliance on ratings of company instead of technically competent team of experts from the employer. Error repetition: Nearly in all cases, project and feedback evaluation after implementation had no role in the reform process of the project design. Unwisely, all designer and user communications were cut off after project implementation and the overall feedbacks of project and public interactions are not investigated.