BUILDINGS;IDEOLOGY AND PROPAGANDA

Iraq under Saddam Hussein suddenly invaded Iran in September 1980, and a war lasting eight years started between them. Nearly all the countries in the world supported Iraq in this war and Iran fought back using all its human forces. This eight-year war was a catastrophe in the 20th century in the entire human history and the second longest war in the 20th century after the Vietnam War, over the Second World War. The point was that both parties killed each other aspiring to go to paradise and this war lasted for eight years according to a religious ideology base on Jihad philosophy.  During this war, 213,255 Iranian people died. After the war, the television channels and the media in Iran spoke about Jihad and the Islamic ideology and always advertised this ideology. As with every war, vast social aspects were influenced by this war in that it was manifested in the arts. The main reason for writing about and working on Ideological art, Sacred art, Propaganda, and the way of escaping from it is that particular war, which influenced and shaped my childhood and all Iranian youth.

There is a very narrow border between Ideological art and Propaganda. When art become a tool for a totalitarian and dictatorship regime to promote one specific idea or lifestyle, Democracy is always missing. Taziye (a religious drama) is one of the artworks which became a tool for the propaganda machine for Iran’s regime after the Iranian religious revolution and Tekies (places for performing Taziye) are a good example of such architectural propaganda  After the Revolution, the role of Tekies was not just buildings for performing religious drama.

These buildings became places for advertising the religious ideology and the Iranian government trying to impress people’s lifestyle, making architecture propaganda.

Nonetheless, people’s reaction to architectural propaganda has changed in the modern world and democracy has become an essential need for people. In this research conversion and rehabilitation as a solution for escaping architectural propaganda is discussed, also considering people’s lifestyle and needs to make a democratic space.