Farsh Film Studio (Tehran, Iran)

A special house for a special person

The Farsh Film Studio in the Iranian capital Tehran is an unusual building. Outside and inside, rough and straightforward. It houses a museum for a nationally known environmentalist and a film studio. The house, built with yellow ocher bricks, was renovated by ZAV Architects in such a way that combines ecological, cultural, and urban planning issues. A big hit, for which there was a special mention at the Fritz Höger Prize 2017 for brick architecture!

Dr. Gholam Ali Beski is well known in Iran. The 86-year-old environmental activist has been fighting uncompromisingly for the preservation of his country's natural resources for over 40 years. Beski's dramatic call on public television to end the deforestation of natural habitats in Iran is vividly remembered.

An authority in Iran

Beski's intellectual brilliance, his television interviews and talk show appearances in the conservative media are always impressive and inspiring for many Iranians. His ascetic lifestyle and unconventional way of getting to the point in heated debates are part of his myth. This man is an authority in Iran.

When the restoration of his house in Tehran was due, it was clear that this would not be an ordinary restoration measure. In ZAV Architects, an innovative Tehran architecture office, Beski found a partner who is also used to thinking in social and ecological categories.

Recycling as a strategy

"The project is a recycled space," the office describes its activities. The recycling of architectural elements and materials in the building was the driving strategy. Old pipes were reused, as were metal elements for the steps and banisters and as room dividers. Used bricks were used for the masonry both outside and inside, and ZAV Architects recycled washbasins in the kitchen and sanitary areas. Furniture and toilet facilities.

This principle is not fed by fashionable vintage concepts of our time, but consistently pursues the ecological approach of Gholam Ali Beski. The architecture office also attached importance to a certain “spatial rigor” as a consistent design element; Brick interior walls, horizontal and vertical concrete elements, and economical furnishing stand for this.

Small Museum

There is a small museum downstairs which is dedicated to Beski’s environmental activities, and upstairs is the space for a film studio. The three-story building extends the street and courtyards into its interior, while terraces and cavities let the filtered exterior into the rooms. The museum on the ground floor, which shows the work of Gholam Ali Beski, has its own entrance and creates a separate public space.

Permeable from top to bottom

The other levels of the house up to the roof house are hosting the Farsh Film Studio and a number of social rooms. The masonry staircase on the north side and the steel staircase on the south side provide a clear view and create communication corridors that benefit the permeability of the multifunctional levels. A roof terrace offers a place for open-air cinema and all kinds of other meetings.

The restored room always distances itself from the common aesthetics of refurbished surfaces and impeccable workmanship. No mistake is covered up with an extra layer of material. Cracks are accepted as an intrinsic material quality of the building inside and outside. The entire restoration is shaped by the idea of resisting the logic of market-oriented recycling.

A house with issues

The Farsh Film Studio conveys a political as well as an architectural issue in a difficult environment. The metropolitan area of Tehran with its more than 20 million inhabitants is a rampant moloch, and interchangeable, functional architecture often determines the picture. This building with its rough Brick-aesthetics and the centrally arranged, vertical stairwell window strip, renovated by ZAV Architects makes a clear statement here.