Development is a globalizing project that prompts shifts in historical consciousness and with it, novel interpretations of the past, in other words, heritage. The built environment as an omnipresent cultural form that is experienced at multiple scales. It is a useful register of such shifts in historical consciousness as well as official or individual efforts to facilitate change. In short development, architecture, and heritage form a nexus.
In this lecture, using Iran as an example, Dr Ali Mozaffari will draw upon case studies to demonstrate how architecture became a conduit for the production of heritage at large in a modernizing Muslim society, and how it has been entangled with development and intellectual debates before and after the Islamic Revolution.
The main talking points will be:
- How does development relate to conceptions of heritage?
- How does the built environment mediate conceptions of the past in developmental contexts?
- How does globality feed into localised conceptions of the past?
In Development, architecture, and the formation of heritage in late twentieth-century Iran: A Vital Past (Manchester University Press, 2020) authors Ali Mozaffari and Nigel Westbrook examine these questions in the context of architectural and heritage experiments in Iran.
The event will consist of a 40 minute author presentation followed by time for audience questions.
The webinar will take place online, 10 February 2022, from 11:00-12:00 (GMT). More information and registry can be found here.