Presented the book "Through Iran"

Presented the book "Through Iran"

On Wednesday 29 November the book "Through Iran was presented. Cities, architectures, landscapes "(Manfredi Edizioni) by Alessandra De Cesaris, Giorgio Di Giorgio and Laura Valeria Ferretti, teachers of the Sapienza faculty of Architecture.

Also present at the meeting were Bruno Botta, pro-rector of International Relations, Akbar Gholi, cultural attaché of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Rome, Luca Ribichini, vice-president of the Faculty of Architecture, Mario Casari, Italian Institute of Oriental Studies of Sapienza, Fiammetta Cucurnia, journalist of "La Repubblica", and Susanna Pasquali, Department of Design History and Restoration of Architecture.

The book is the result of a collaboration between La Sapienza and the University of Tehran, which have organized workshops in Iran to help their students collaborate on urban projects aimed at enhancing the capital of the country and the riches of the territory. Within this collaboration, the professors have collected a series of experiences and experiences necessary for the realization of the project that has led them to a long and intense theoretical and practical research: a journey - both mental and physical - in the beautiful architectures and landscapes of the new Persia. That's why their work, explains Di Giorgio, was not born to write what they had learned, but on the contrary to elaborate and understand their experience: a starting point, therefore, for a research just begun.

The project, however, was not the first meeting point between La Sapienza and Iran: it is in fact standing a decades-long collaboration during which the Roman University has also contributed to the restoration of mosques and the excavations of the city of Persepolis .

After all, as explained by Professor Mario Casari, the relationships between Persian culture and Italian culture have always been there: cultures that have always been influenced and enriched with each other and are closer than the media sometimes believe. In a very quick historical summary, Casari mentions not only the renowned trade of ancient and medieval times through the 'silk road', but also the attempts of alliance between the authorities of our peninsula and the Persian Empire when, at the end of the fifteenth century, the threat from the Ottoman Empire prompted the popes to seek support from the Shah of Persia. During the Middle Ages, the first translations of Persian works were made in our peninsula, which would have greatly influenced the whole of Western culture.

The relations between Persia and the West are visible in Western architectural works, such as the ancient canalization of the city of Madrid, the Mosque of Cordoba, the church of San Cataldo in Palermo. The Persia is also represented in Rome, we see it in the figures of the Magi Kings of the church of Sant'Onofrio at the Gianicolo or in the Sibyl Persica of the Sistine Chapel.

Costumes, architectures and shapes, explains Professor Pasquali, which are not typical of classical or Arab art and which have their own characteristics different from us. The professor gives a brief explanation of the use, in the architecture of this culture, of a base of 'parallel walls' which allow you to build different architectural structures and different functions on top of them. Mosques, bridges, arches, loggias, Persia is full of these structures as long, beautiful corridors that appear multiform and multi colors, extremely functional and elegant buildings.

Architectural features inspired by the shapes of the landscape that always presents contrast between immense spaces and reduced spaces. From the desert, from the mountain ranges, from the agricultural landscapes, from the oases to the huge metropolis (ancient and modern) with their bazaars, the mosques, the Persian gardens, the caravanserais. Crowd and emptiness in a single great country, rich in history, the cornerstone of culture, and which strives, sometimes forcibly, to modernity. A charm, explain the teachers, unimaginable to those who have not been there.

These structures and this alternation of forms so particular is what they tried to represent De Cesaris, Di Giorgio and Ferretti in their book through photos, descriptions, historical and cultural exscursus, plants and drawings. The hope is to have described a very different Iran from the one told by the media in order to know it better: unavoidable knowledge for a peaceful life of all cultures.

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