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The Shahyad
Monument
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The Shahyad Tower. Admitedly a symbol of modern Iran, but also
one of the most beautiful
monument in the world, sheltering one of its finest museums.
This "Gateway into Iran," was the symbol of the country's revival. The Shahyad Tower was a striking national monument and audio-visual theatre complex". Its name: Shah (king) and Yad (remembrance) was intended to remind coming generations of the achievements of modern Iran under the Pahlavi Dynasty.
It is 45 m high, the height of the large arch is 21 m, the base is 63 m wide. It is built with white stone from the Esfahan region. There are eight thousand blocks of stone. The shape of each of them was calculated by a computer programmed to include all the instructions for the building work. It was designed by Hossein Amanat, a talented young Iranian architect. A few months after completing his architectural studies at the University of Tehran, he succeeded in arousing the interest of a famous research company and was awarded the first prize in the competition for the decoration of the Shahyad Square. The main financing was provided by a group of five hundred Iranian industrialists. The inauguration took place on October 16th 1971.
The museum: One entered the basement of the tower directly underneath the main vault. The black walls, the sober and pure lines, the proportions of the whole building created an intentionally austere atmosphere. Heavy doors opened onto a kind of crypt where lighting was subdued. The shock was immediate. The lighting there seemed to issue from showcases here and there which each contained a unique object. Gold and enamel pieces, painted potteries, marble, the warm shades of the miniatures and of the varnished paintings glittered like stars among the black marble walls and in the semi-darkness of the concrete mesh which formed the ceiling of this cave of marvels. There were about fifty pieces selected among the finest and most precious in Iran. They were in excellent condition and represented precise periods in the country's history.
The place of honour was occupied by "Cyrus's Cylinder". Unfortunately it was only a faithful copy since the British Museum never returned to Iran this symbol of its greatness and permanence... The translation of this first "Declaration of Human Rights" was inscribed in golden letters on the wall of one of the galleries leading to the museum's audio-visual department; opposite, a similar plaque listed the Twelve Points of the "White Revolution". Next to the "cylinder" a magnificent gold plaque commemorated the presentation of the museum to the Shah by the Mayor of Tehran.
Square flag-stones, gold sheeting, terra cotta tablets from Susa covered with Cuneiform characters of astonishingly rigorous geometry were the earliest testimonies of History. Potteries, ceramics, varnished porcelains like the beautiful 7th-century blue and gold dish from Gorgan, an illuminated Koran, a few exceptional miniatures formed milestones in the country's history up to the 19th century represented by two magnificent painted panels from Empress Farah Pahlavi's collection.
The audio-visual theatre: The visitor then took a narrow faintly lighted passageway and suddenly found himself on a very slow-moving and silent conveyor. This "machine for the exploration of time" took him through a series of seven halls. Lighting effects, movie projections, the alternation or repetition of coloured or black-and-white stills in close-up or faded out, directional sound effects, captivating music took the spectator, or the traveller, one should rather say, into a strange universe of completely new dimensions. And very gradually, the History of the World, and of Iran, unfolded before his eyes.
A first show, devised in 1971, was replaced in 1975 by a new one which invited the visitor to discover Iran's geographic and natural diversity along with its fundamental historical elements. The landscapes and works of art, the faces and achievements, calligraphied poems and technical undertakings, the life and hopes of a population were shown through its ancient miniatures as well as through the smiling studiousness of Iran's new children generation. A grandiose show!
This creative "Sound and Light" performance was devised by a Czechoslovak firm. 12,000 metres of film, 20,000 colour-slides, twenty movie projectors and one hundred and twenty slide-projectors were required. and five com uters oerated the entire system.
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