Abstract

Common space and public open spaces are studied and investigated from various aspects in western contexts. What is the most considered in this study is the relationship between public open space and democratic functions in eastern context and especially in Middle Eastern countries. The notion of public is connected to the notion of people in the framework of the nation-state political organization. What was happened in Cairo in 2011, just as in Kiev in 2014, and Turkey 2013 was the prolonged and mass occupation of public space by citizens. Indeed, physical space for the expression of democratic rights and claims is important in modern democracy. Tehran is studied as the example of a contemporary metropolis that embodies spatial-political tensions within its urban form. Tehran’s urban form remains deeply rooted in the historical ideologies of space in shaping a contemporary space of sovereignty. By reading the city through transformation of public spaces, the relationship between its architecture and political power will be exposed as an example in which the architecture of the city is charged with enabling an ideological interaction through action and reaction, revolution and resistance. This study focuses on Tehran during two major intervals 1921-1950(politics towards modernity)/1951-1979(Architecture for revolution) and the roots and results of these critical periods and their integration to political theology in contemporary middle-east metropolis.