From Utopia to Dystopia: Shushtar-e-No, Endeavour Towards Paradigmatic Shift

Abstract

In the 1970s, and to meet the needs of the growing urban population, the Iranian government was able to plan for large-scale investments in the housing sector, thanks to suddenly increasing oil revenues. For a while, the western approach to housing and dwelling, crystallised in the proliferating and internationally appreciated style of modern architecture, dominated Iran’s new architecture and urban planning. However, a number of architects and urban planners resisted this dominance and tried to create a paradigmatic shift in the approach to housing and dwelling, focusing on the place-specific aspects of the context. The Shushtar-e-No project was an endeavour of this kind. This chapter addresses this paradigmatic shift, focusing on the case of Shushtar-e-No, a satellite city located 2 km from the old city of Shushtar and designed by Kamran Diba. After a short introduction to the political, social, and architectural context of the scheme, the chapter highlights how the architect’s unique approach to the built environment promised a paradigmatic shift in the question of housing and dwelling, the aim of which was to ‘synthesise’ the two modes of tradition and modernity in quest of a ‘local style’, and to promote a ‘social agenda’. Next, an investigation of the current environmental, social, and physical situation of the community will show its degeneration from the initial utopian image into a state of dystopia, which can be linked with both the initial architectural pre-suppositions and with later unexpected political incidents. Ultimately, using Foucauldian terminology, it will be concluded that Shushtar-e-No has transformed to a ‘crisis community’, a ‘forgotten land’, which represents a heterotopia par excellence.