Tehran Master Plan
Core idea
Superblocks, expressways, green structure
Why it matters
Modernist regional framework for a megacity
Description
The 1968 Tehran Master Plan, prepared jointly by Victor Gruen Associates and the Iranian firm of Abdol-Aziz Farmanfarmaian, was a comprehensive twenty-five-year framework for the fast-growing Iranian capital. It proposed a westward linear expansion organised into large superblock communities, a hierarchy of urban centres, a network of expressways, and a continuous green structure, including limits on growth towards the Alborz foothills.
Significance
The plan is a prominent example of American consultant planning exported to a modernising monarchy, embedding functionalist superblock and expressway models in a Middle Eastern megacity. Its expressways and service hierarchy still structure much of Tehran, while the mismatch between its formal framework and the city's revolutionary-era informal growth has made it a key case in studies of transnational planning transfer.
What shaped it
- The superblock (1920s–30s / 2016 revival)
- The urban freeway (mid-20th c.)
- Ville Contemporaine / Plan Voisin / Ville Radieuse (1922–1933)
- The master plan (early 20th c.)
Sources
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02665433.2018.1468805
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdol-Aziz_Mirza_Farmanfarmaian