Shustar New Town

Shushtar New Town is one of the most well-known housing projects in contemporary Iranian architecture. Located close to the ancient city of Shushtar in the southwest of Iran, Shushtar New Town follows the traditional urban pattern of Iranian cities with an interwoven urban fabric and (mud)brick as construction material. The project was designed by Kamran Diba in 1972 and planned in five stages, to be completed in 1985. Construction started in 1976 and most of the first phase, which was planned to function as an autonomous unit and to accommodate about 4,200 inhabitants, was completed in 1978. While Shustar New Town was intended to house 30,000 workers of the Karun Agro Industry (major sugar cane and production industry), due to the Islamic revolution of 1979 the project was not completely implemented and only another small part of it was constructed between 1980 and 1985.

On account of the sudden increase in oil revenues in the 1970s, the Iranian Ministry of Housing stimulated different organizations to provide housing for their employees. To achieve this goal, industrial construction systems were taken into consideration. This trend was welcomed by the Western-oriented architects at that time, although this notion neglected local materials and labours, imposed a different lifestyle and ignored the inhabitants’ cultural and social particularities. With the assignment for designing Shustar New Town, Diba took the opportunity to resist these modern concepts and designed a regionally-inspired housing scheme.

He instigated a quest to provide urban enclaves that address the very cultural and social identity of society. Diba perceives a built city-structure as a ‘social event’ that can multiply and enhance the quality of interaction between people. As a result, in the urban plan he designed a ‘social spine’ consisting of a series of public spaces: paved squares, lush gardens, covered and shaded resting places, fountains and running water, which are lined with schools and bazaars to stimulate socialization. The main plaza – never realized – was to be situated on the riverbank, where a pedestrian bridge would connect the new and the old city. Public space is also provided by the neighbourhood plaza, which connects the four living quarters and is surrounded by shops and teahouses. A neighbourhood mosque in the middle of one of the residential quarters follows the traditional pattern in terms of its integration with the surroundings. A more private sense of public space is created in front of the dwellings, where the houses meet the street. This realm was to be the border between private and public and can be seen as an extension of the dwelling, where children play and parents chat.

For Diba, high-rise building is incompatible with creating a humane community. Moreover he believes that the cultural particularity of Muslim societies resists this kind of unfamiliar dwelling, and that architects should create horizontal density. Based on these arguments, he used a low-rise housing model, in which the majority of the dwellings are one or two storeys high. Contrary to the Western notion of the house as an agglomeration of different rooms with particular functions (living room, dining room, bedroom), the traditional concept of the room as a polyvalent space was his departure point. In conceptualizing the dwelling units, the courtyard, which architecturally represents the cultural identity of Iranians, was the main source of inspiration for designing. As a result, the courtyard was placed at the heart of the dwelling and the rooms were attached to it. Most rooms in the two- to four-room houses are 5 x 5 m; smaller ones are 3 x 3 or 4 x 4 m. The roofs of the residential buildings are connected, creating an upper-level cityscape based on the traditional roofscape of Iranian cities.

To build the project, traditional construction methods, local materials and mostly local, unskilled labour were used. Shustar New Town is a unique example of a large-scale urban development conceived and produced by local designers and builders with respect for indigenous lifestyles.