Welcoming Spring
The Spring Equinox arrives next week, and the Northern Hemisphere begins to awaken to birdsong and warming dawns. The earliest recorded instances of Nawruz, also known as the Persian New Year, are from the third century BCE, with its efflorescence during the Sassanian Dynasty. Although rooted in the Zoroastrian religion, Nawruz (literally, “new day”) is celebrated across diverse communities in West, Central and South Asia.
Emerging from darkness, the new day brings joy, rebirth, and hope for better days – sentiments that seem ever more precious in this fragile and war-torn world. At PLATFORM we’re pleased that the geographic scope of our publications allows us to share a sampling of essays from some of the countries where the celebration is popular. These essays range from the early modern to the present day, from Tehran to Kashgar; they give us cause for optimism, as they highlight what individuals can achieve but also what communities can aspire towards together, be it social and economic autonomy or political freedom.
We wish our readers Nawruz Mubarak!
Figure 1. Photograph of the Khaju bridge (Hasanabad bridge) over the Zayande river connecting the Fathabad chaharbagh to the Aminabad chaharrbagh. This bridge was originally constructed under Shah Abbas II in the 17th century and Sadr-i Isfahani restored and repaired it while establishing his new chaharbagh avenues in the early 19th century. Photo: Samira Fathi, 2015.
In “Promenading in Isfahan’s Chaharbaghs” (in English and Persian), Samira Fathi explores the role of the chaharbagh, or tree-lined public promenade, in the spatial urban experience of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Isfahan, Iran. Contemporary accounts reveal the impact of this promenade on the lived experience of Isfahanis and its role in the vitality of the city. Fathi finds that the promenade was a bustling, vibrant public space that acted as a direct link between social and religious zones of the city. A key reference point was the architectural patronage of Sadr-i Isfahani, who, as a patron and later the city’s governor in the early 1800s, restored Isfahan’s urban prosperity by creating more chaharbaghs and weaving the practice of promenading into the experience of the city. Understanding the legacy of Isfahan’s shared public spaces is important, Fathi suggests, for they later served as inspiration for the subsequent urban planning of cities in modern Iran.
Figure 2. Uprising in Tehran, Keshavarz Boulevard September 2022, Photo by Darafsh, Source: Wikimedia Commons
“A Tragedy in Four Acts” is a powerful and moving account of the tragic death of Mahsa "Jina" Amini and the subsequent protests it sparked, shining a light on the ongoing struggle for women's rights in Iran. The story is part of a four-act piece that highlights the oppression and violence many Iranian women face for the simple act of claiming the right to be in public spaces.
Figure 3. A morning “gate opening ceremony” at the reconstructed Imperial-era city wall, 2019. The woman’s sash reads: “The home of ancient beauty welcomes you.” Courtesy Shutterstock.
Lauren Restrepo’s 3-part series, “Spatiocide as Spectacle: Planning and the Symbolic Death of Old Kashgar” describes the spatial transformations that have been occurring in Kashgar, which is in the Xinjiang Uygher Autonomous Region in northwest China. Spatiocide, Restrepo explains, is state violence against the spaces of symbolic importance to Uygher ethnic minorities. In Kashgar, the Chinese state has enacted an “urban renewal” process that has transformed the city into “Ancient Kashgar”: a highly stylized historical reenactment set in the late nineteenth century. This forced transformation, she argues, aims to extinguish Kashgar’s culture so totally that the city can no longer serve as the metropole at the heart of the Uyghur homeland. In the interest of “national security”—while in reality making the city more legible to the Chinese security apparatus— Uyghur domestic spaces have been “modernized,” streets have been widened and flattened, and most residents displaced to new high-rises on the city’s fringe. Have the state’s efforts, Restrepo wonders, successfully diminished Kashgar’s symbolic significance for Uyghurs?
Figure 4. Kumbhalgarh temple, ca. 1450. Photograph by Madhuri Desai.
In view of the politics of temple construction in present-day India, Madhuri Desai explains the significance of the building and aesthetic traditions that are shared between Islam and Hinduism in “The Mughal Temple in Banaras and Beyond.” She focuses her discussion on the Hindu temple in Kumbhalgarh, India (built ca. 1450), which features architectural characteristics associated with Hindu, Islam, and Persianate culture. Islam’s strong presence in South Asia from the 13th to 19th centuries instigated political, cultural, and religious transformation in the Indian subcontinent. When viewed through such a lens, the temple at Kumbhalgarh, far from being anomalous or corrupt, reflects a contemporary cultural and architectural synthesis. A non-specialist idea of an authentic Hindu temple precludes any inclusion of architectural forms or spatial configurations that could reference South Asia’s millennium-long Islamic legacy. Her essay, therefore, is an effort at bridging this cultural and aesthetic divide and a plea to a larger audience and readership to embrace the idea of the Mughal temple.
Figure 5. Pakistan Chulah, Makli, Pakistan, 2015. Photograph courtesy of Heritage Foundation.
Finally, in our two-part series “Towards Barefoot Social Architecture: A conversation with Yasmeen Lari” (in two parts, in English and Urdu), Platform editor Kishwar Rizvi and Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari Yasmeen Lari discuss Lari’s initiatives for socially responsible architecture and its roots in her earlier projects. When a devastating earthquake occurred in 2005, Lari contributed to the relief effort by experimenting with low-cost and sustainable building materials and techniques that allowed affected communities to rebuild efficiently and affordably. She discovered that bamboo, along with other local materials, is remarkably resilient to floods and earthquakes, in addition to being highly sustainable. Since then, she has been training environmental refugees in bamboo construction, ceramic crafts, and terracotta production, including the chulah, an elevated earthen stove that provides a clean, safe, and efficient place for women to cook. Lari has found that training the poor in these skills has led to their economic and social empowerment, bringing many above the poverty line and allowing them to be self-reliant. She hopes that young architects will be inspired to build with sustainability and resilience in mind in order to address poverty, urban disparity, and climate change.
Citation
PLATFORM, “Welcoming Spring,” PLATFORM, March 11, 2024.
