Architectures of Transversality

Architectures of Transversality investigates the relationship between modernity, space, power, and culture in Iran. Focusing on Paul Klee's Persian-inspired miniature series and Louis Kahn's unbuilt blueprint for a democratic public space in Tehran, it traces the architectonics of the present as a way of moving beyond universalist and nationalist accounts of modernism. Transversality is a form of spatial production and practice that addresses the three important questions of the self, objects, and power. Using Deleuzian and Heideggerian theory, the book introduces the practices of Klee and Kahn as transversal spatial responses to the dialectical tension between existential and political territories and, in doing so, situates the history of the silent, unrepresented and the unbuilt - constructed from the works of Klee and Kahn - as a possible solution to the crisis of modernity and identity-based politics in Iran.

Shima Mohajeri is a Lecturer of Architectural History at the University of Washington, USA.

Prelude.  1. Transversal Space of Modernity  2.Spaces of objectivity in Persian miniatures 3. Klee's Miniature Series, 1916-1918  4. Dialetics of Power and Culture in Iran  5. Kahn's Silent Space of Critique in Tehran, 1973-1974  Epilogue.  Bibliography.  Index