'A heritage of the world': Architect Hossein Amanat distressed by Trump's threat to Iran's cultural sites
'These masterpieces are lessons to all the architects of the world,' says renowned Vancouver architect
In the midst of escalating tension between the United States and Iran, a Vancouver-based architect who was born in Iran is imploring U.S. President Donald Trump to reconsider his threat tweeted Saturday threatening to target sites important to Iran and Iranian culture.
On Monday, the Pentagon contradicted Trump's tweets, saying it had no plans to bomb cultural sites. Bombing cultural sites is considered a war crime and a violation of international law.
Hossein Amanat, 77, was born in Tehran but left the country during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, moving to Vancouver. He is most well known for designing Tehran's iconic Azadi tower, built in 1971, after Amanat's design was chosen in a national competition.
Amanat said the 44-metre marble-covered tower, which was originally commissioned to mark the 2,500th year of the Persian empire, is a representation of thousands of years of Iranian architecture.
"I was looking for some symbols to present different periods of the history of Iran," Amanat told host Gloria Macarenko on CBC's On The Coast about the design process.
He said he reached into depths of the country's pre-Islamic architectural history — like the great stone monuments of Persepolis and Pasargadae from the Achaemenid empire — to its post-Islamic masterpieces including, for example, the mosque in Isfahan, where almost half a million coloured tiles cover its expansive domes.
"These masterpieces are lessons to all the architects of the world," he said.
Amanat recalled a meeting with eminent Vancouver architect Arthur Erickson after he arrived in Vancouver.
"He found out that I'm from Iran. He just was full of praise for what he had seen. These are world's assets. These are the achievements of humanity on this planet."
Amanat says Trump's threat is heartbreaking, saying he wished he could show the president first hand how beautiful some of these monuments are.
"[The point] of living on this planet is what we do in art and literature," Amanat said, his voice breaking.
"This is what remains and it is what has remained … it is part of the world. It is a heritage of the world."
Listen to the full interview with architect Hossein Amanat here:
With files from On The Coast