Organizers in Tehran cancelled the third International Conference on Contemporary Iranian Architecture after they learned that distinguished American architect Peter Eisenman had been invited to participate. The original program had included a seminar entitled “Peter Eisenman: From Yesterday to Tomorrow,” where the architect would have addressed the conference on May 13 and 14 at Tehran’s Milad Tower.
A private architectural foundation sponsored the conference, which also had the support of a number of Iranian universities. The cancellation announcement only mentions that the conference would not take place “out of respect for concerned authorities and their judgment.”
Abdolhamid Noghrehkar, director of the Center for Islamic Architecture at Tehran University of Science and Technology, called Eisenman a ”nihilist architect” and a “soldier of cultural invasion.” “He belongs to Zionist and Freemasonry movements and their media strongly promote him,” Noghrehkar wrote in a note published by the hardliner newspaper Vatan.
Eisenman is the architect of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and it appears this is the source of the grudge Iranian hardliners hold against him. “When you search the Web for Peter Eisenman you see a huge number of pictures of the Holocaust Memorial,” wrote the hardline site Raja News. “Eisenman is totally a servant of Western capitalism. He and others like him declare that morals have no place in architecture. Today when even the smallest criticism of Holocaust in the West prompts the strong reactions of Western governments which serve the Zionist regime, an American architect and a propagandist for the fabricated story of Holocaust packs his bags to travel to Iran.”
Another group which calls itself Students Supporting Islamic Justice issued a statement criticizing the Foreign Ministry and the security agencies. “The presence in Iran of Peter Eisenman, a supporter of the Zionist regime and a Holocaust propagandist is surprising and saddening, especially on the anniversary of the establishment of this bloodthirsty occupier regime,” the statement reads.
The prominent hardline newspaper Kayhan joined the critics. “Western countries and supporters of the Zionist regime have always reacted harshly to the critics of the Holocaust and Peter Eisenman’s trip to the Islamic Republic of Iran takes place in such an atmosphere,” read an editorial.
The newspaper cited a conference on the Holocaust held in Iran in 2006, organized by the Holocaust-denying former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “At the time the government of Germany confiscated the passports of 13 critics of the Holocaust and called the Iranian chargé d'affaires in Berlin to lodge a strong protest. The American government also issued a statement and called the conference ‘shameful’.”
The hardline media campaign eventually led to the cancellation of the conference, a decision that Kayhan later endorsed and used as an opportunity to hit out against reformist media that had supported the event.
In an interview with the Persian-language service of the BBC, Eisenman denied that he is a Zionist. “I had hoped to travel to Isfahan and Shiraz to learn about other aspects of the Islamic World.”
“The memorial is for the Jews killed in Europe and it contains no symbols of the Holocaust. There no Jewish symbols or any other symbols. It is a place for contemplation. I never talk about Holocaust.”
“They say that Iran has opened up to the West,” he said. “But I believe that if somebody like Peter Eisenman, an architect, cannot travel to Isfahan, this opening is very small.”
In the past few months Iran’s hardliners have used the Holocaust pressure President Hassan Rouhani’s government. Last week parliament summoned Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to ask him why he does not explicitly deny the Holocaust. The MPs who called the hearing base their positions on statements made by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who like Ahmadinejad believes that the Holocaust is a fabrication.
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