Azadi Tower

Azadi Tower
Azadi Tower.
General information
Location	Tehran, Iran
Height
Roof	50 m

The Azadi Tower (برج آزادی burj-e azadi)(also known as the Shahyad Tower) is the symbol of Tehran, Iran, and marks the entrance to this large metropolitan city.

Built in 1971 in commemoration of the 2500th anniversary of the Persian Empire, this "Gateway into Iran" was named the Shahyad Tower (meaning "Remembrance of the Shahs (Kings)") but dubbed Azadi (Freedom) after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. It is the symbol of the country's revival, and intended to remind coming generations of the achievements of modern Iran under the Pahlavi Dynasty. It is 50 metres (148 feet) tall and is completely clad in cut marble.

The architect is Hossein Amanat who had won a competition to design the monument. Azadi Tower combines the Sassanid and Islamic architecture styles. It is a part of the Azadi cultural complex, located in Tehran's Azadi square in an area of some 50,000 m². There is a museum and several fountains underneath the tower.

It is thought that the Milad Tower will replace this long-time symbol of Tehran, although many observers have doubted this claim.

See In Google Earth

• 3D Model of Azadi Tower for Google Earth

Construction

Built with white marble stone from the Esfahan region, there are eight thousand blocks of stone. The shape of each of block was calculated by a computer programmed to include all the instructions for the building work. The main financing was provided by a group of five hundred Iranian industrialists. The inauguration took place on October sixteenth 1971.

Museum

One enters the basement of the tower directly underneath the main vault. The black walls, the sober and pure lines and the proportions of the whole building create an intentionally austere atmosphere. Heavy doors open onto a kind of crypt where lighting is subdued. The shock is immediate. The lighting there seems to issue from showcases here and there which each contains a unique object. Gold and enamel pieces, painted potteries, marble, the warm shades of the miniatures and of the varnished paintings glitter like stars among the black marble walls and in the semi-darkness of the concrete mesh which forms the ceiling of this cave of marvels. There are about fifty pieces selected among the finest and most precious in Iran. They are in excellent condition and represent precise periods in the country's history.

The place of honour is occupied by a copy of "Cyrus's Cylinder" (the original being in the British Museum). The translation of this first "Declaration of Human Rights" is inscribed in golden letters on the wall of one of the galleries leading to the museum's audio-visual department; opposite, a similar plaque listed the Twelve Points of the "White Revolution". Next to the "cylinder" a magnificent gold plaque commemorats the presentation of the museum to the Shah by the Mayor of Tehran.

Square flag-stones, gold sheeting, terra cotta tablets from Susa covered with Cuneiform characters of astonishingly rigorous geometry are the earliest testimonies of Iran's history. Potteries, ceramics, varnished porcelains like the beautiful seventh-century blue and gold dish from Gorgan, an illuminated Koran, a few exceptional miniatures display milestones in the country's annals up to the nineteenth century; represented by two magnificent painted panels from Empress Farah Pahlavi's collection.

Audio/Visual Theatre

A first show, devised in 1971, was replaced in 1975 by a new one which invited the visitor to discover Iran's geographic and natural diversity along with its fundamental historical elements. The landscapes and works of art, the faces and achievements, calligraphied poems and technical undertakings, the life and hopes of a population were shown through its ancient miniatures as well as through the smiling studiousness of Iran's new children generation.

This creative "Sound and Light" performance was devised by a Czechoslovak firm. 12,000 metres of film, 20,000 colour-slides, twenty movie projectors and one hundred and twenty slide-projectors were required. Five computers operated the entire system.

See also

• Tower
• List of towers
• Iranian architecture

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