Tehran Landmarks - Tee

Two Towers, Fifty Years Between Them

A medium-weight cotton tee that puts Tehran's two defining structures on opposite sides of the same garment — the older one worked into the outline of the country, the newer one standing on its own.

You cannot see both at once, which is the design. Front and back are separated by half a century and you have to turn to get from one to the other.

Azadi Tower was completed in 1971 for the 2,500th anniversary celebrations, designed by Hossein Amanat, who won the competition at twenty-four. It was called Shahyad then; it became Azadi — Freedom — after 1979, and the same arch has stood over both names. Milad went up more than three decades later and tops out above 400 metres, one of the tallest telecommunications towers anywhere. One is a gateway. The other is an antenna.

The Design Vision

• Azadi inside the map: The front sets the tower's inverted-Y arch within the national outline, so the landmark and the territory read as one drawn object.

• Milad on the back: The modern tower given the full reverse placement, vertical and uninterrupted, with nothing else competing for the space.

• Line over mass: Both structures are rendered as fine linework rather than solid silhouette, which keeps the geometry of the arch legible instead of flattening it.

• A deliberate split: Old city on one side, current city on the other. The tee makes you choose which one faces the room.

Same skyline. Fifty years apart.