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Diba, Kamran (Tabatabai)
(b Tehran, 5 March 1937). Iranian architect, urban planner and painter. He studied architecture at Howard University, Washington, DC, graduating in 1964 and then adding a year of post-graduate studies in sociology. He returned to Tehran in 1966 and a year later became President and Senior Designer of DAZ Consulting Architects, Planners and Engineers. DAZ undertook numerous and diverse projects in Iran and grew rapidly; it had a staff of 150 in 1977. Diba worked entirely in the public sector in Iran and was interested in both vernacular traditions and the demands of modern urban society, especially for human interaction. The partially completed Shushtar New Town (1974–80) in Khuzestan, where he was both architect and planner, owes much of its success to the traditional construction patterns and building types used by Diba in place of the Western-style planning favoured by the authorities. The town, planned for a population of 30,000, was designed along a central communications spine with crossroads and public squares around which small neighbourhoods were established, with gardens and bazaars to encourage community life. The poetic brick-clad buildings produce a unified architecture that is elegant, and the sequencing of the urban spaces is highly refined. Other significant works in Iran include several buildings at Jondi Shapour University (1968–76) at Ahvaz, and what is perhaps his best-known work, the Museum of Contemporary Art (1976), Tehran, which is lit by half-vaults in the roof reminiscent of the traditional wind catchers of the Middle East. He was also the museum’s founder and first Director (1976–8). In addition he designed a number of small mosques. Diba served as urban planning consultant to Iran’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and his firm developed master plans for a number of cities including Khorramshahr, an important port in the Persian Gulf, where he collaborated with the Greek planner Constantinos A. Doxiades. In 1977 he left Iran to live in Paris and Washington, DC, working in private practice. His projects included speculative housing schemes in Virginia and hotel developments in Spain. In 1977 he was Visiting Critic at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. As a painter, Diba had several one-man shows in Iran; he was also a collector of and a dealer in contemporary Western paintings.
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