Architecture as Pedagogy

This paper looks at the relationship between the 1963 White Revolution as a socio- economic reform and a transformation of the architectural pedagogy in Iran from Beaux- Arts to the United States-Italian system. The White Revolution or the Revolution of the Shah and the People included a series of socio-economic reforms under the Point 4 plan, which was supported by the United States to prevent the influence of communism in Iran and the Middle East during the Cold War. The changing of the socio-economic structure from a feudal to modern structure was a major internal struggle that the Revolution dealt with to provide a ground for the development and industrialization of the country. The Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran was one that had a feudal structure, which met radical changes to transform into a new system of architectural education, which was a combination of United States and Italian pedagogy. Moreover, the emergence of a new architecture school, National University, as an alternative pedagogy against the Faculty of Fine Arts, completed the Revolution of Architectural pedagogy in the 1960s. The paper will describe this story by elaborating the nexus between the Revolution and architectural pedagogy to show how socio-political change could affect the structure, content, and process in architectural studios.