While we are on the subject of buildings..some of my foreign friends ask me why there are no skyscrapers in Iran..and my answer has always been that skyscrapers are not allowed in Iran due to many earthquake fault lines criss crossing Iranian landscape. I recall few years back Tehran city planners vetoed a proposed skyscraper of Iranian Gas company .. is this true that permits are not issued for skyscrapers in Iran..
It could well be, I wouldn't know to be honest. The only building in Iran to meet the definition of a skyscraper is the residential 56-storey Tehran International Tower right next to the ASP blocks, at 162 meters of height. There are no others.
Considering Tehran is built upon two geological fault lines, I guess proliferation of skyscrapers wouldn't be an ideal option. I'm assuming the measures required to make such buildings quake-proof are costly. As an engineer you'll have better insight into this.
There's also the fact that the urban development model in Iran has produced cities of high to very high population density. As an example Tehran's population in the 22 inner city districts is said to stand at around 9,38 million, for a surface area of exactly 730 square km. Contrast this with Greater London - 9,54 million inhabitants spread across... 1569 square km. And a more or less comparable percentage of built up area. The high density model has disadvantages of its own, especially when it reaches such orders of magnitude. Disadvantages amplified by said earthquake risks.
Now in reality a cluster of skyscrapers can very well present lower population density - including in daytime if the skyscrapers are non-residential - than a low rise neighborhood. Depending on the space between buildings etc. In Iran such a development would require consequent planning and strict implementation of regulations, to the detriment of those seeking to reap benefits from speculative investment in the real estate sector. A challenging task onto itself, given the superior margin skyscrapers could generate on expensive plots in Tehran.
There's a third aspect which in my opinion speaks against skyscrapers, and this one is of cultural and social-psychological nature. I share similar reservations about massive shopping malls by the way, seeing how these are manifestations of globalist consumerism. In addition, the expensive and luxurious ones are off limits to the masses, intensifying social resentment. Not to mention how these exquisite malls are feeding corruption both in their construction phase (see the Ayande Bank affair in relation to Iran Mall) and during operation since they offer a perfect money laundering opportunity for economically powerful but corrupt entities.
Also do not underestimate the cultural-political impact of these projects. It may be called Iran Mall by name, but more than one awestruck compatriot frequenting these places will gradually and subconsciously be led to conclude "the USA cannot be as mischievous a government as I used to think, after all these types of eye-catching works originate from there". The exact same process affects many regular viewers of Hollywood films, notwithstanding the fact that some of these films on the surface might appear critical of USA politics and/or society. That Hollywood (and Hollywoodism) has consistently been weaponized as a key vector of soft war, psy-ops and cultural imperialism by USA security services, the Pentagon and the State Department for about a century is a thoroughly studied and documented occurrence.
At the end of the day we need to decide whether we want to ape the patterns of globalist capitalism by opting for a purely interchangeable type of urbanism which will yield localities resembling any random, "normalized" city across the world - including in its social, economical, political and cultural ramifications; or, and my preference would naturally gravitate towards this second rationale, think outside the box and devise from scratch a solution anchored in Iran's distinct civilizational heritage. This could possibly imply standardized low rise edifices intertwined with gardens, urban textures of lesser overall density, traditional networks of water conduits utilizing modern technology where convenient, elements of classic Iranian architecture in close contact with the surrounding natural environment and more.
I'd dare go as far as postulating, along with some historians indeed, that a rather ill-conceived modern urbanism from the late Qajar era through the entire Pahlavi period, profoundly shook Iranian society. And that social-political distress in Iran since the advent of modernity has stemmed in no small part from this somehow alienating phenomenon of sustained urbanization.
The disorderly tumult of Tehran end up producing a certain charm of its own, not least thanks to the city's juxtaposition to the Alborz range in combination with a myriad of architecturally, decoratively or functionally (parks etc) interesting features which tend to stand out and are discernible in virtually every corner of town. Nonetheless I'd advocate a radical revision of urban planning in favor of a heterodox, innovative development path grounded in tradition and emancipated from the cultural hazards of the conformist approach (given that the contemporary globalist norm is antinomical to tradition).
