Arash Mozafari, Nipco Factory, 1998. Courtesy: EBA[M]+[C]

Parallel Existence
I began studying architecture following the Iran-Iraq War. This 8-year war, which almost eradicated a whole generation in my country, received little coverage in the press in the West. In Iran, however, it was one of the most destructive periods in the twentieth century, two years before a bloody revolution had abolished a monarchy that had lasted some two millennia. It was replaced by a republic that had an ideology with an Islamic suffix. This caused a huge societal transformation from a society with an emerging westernized middle class to a society whose political ideology imposed traditionalism. This created a change in orientation from a society of public space to private space.
The Revolution, and then the war, was the backdrop of my university years. This history that was unfolding around me became a laboratory to examine the tensions between traditionalism and modernism.
During this period Iran had very limited contact with the West. This affected many aspects of society and culture, including architecture. During that period modernism was already coming under increasing scrutiny in the West as it was about to be succeeded by post-modernism. In Iran, however, modernism continued to be the accepted esthetic in academic circles. In this isolated world at once foggy and translucent, where ornamental shells prevailed inner functions, architecture was preparing for its own inner battle to redefine itself between a state-imposed traditionalism and the modernism that had become nothing more than a leftover of the pre-revolution period.
These limitations, perhaps ironically, gave me the freedom to articulate my own personal vision of architecture. I envisioned architecture through the prism of minimalism; abstraction and function to a formless mass. In this vision the outer shell separated itself from the inner core, creating a new space where the shell had a new identity and function...
Political conflict and social change sometimes can become catalysts to progress. At least for myself and my peers, we used the obstacles that were being imposed on us as a means to re-invent our architectural vision. This was at a time when our isolation removed us from the transition from modernism to post-modernism that was occurring in the rest of the world. In this situation, architecture most unexpectedly became a free exploration where shells could solidify, while cores could be set loose, and vice versa. Continuing to apply the abstraction of modernism, and at the same time disconnected from the emerging post-modernism and its ambiguities, we were free to apply functionality as a way to transcend both. This created for us a more concise approach to architecture that addressed directly the site and the program in the design of any structure.
The models and illustrations presented here offer an abstract of our vision of this kind of architecture.