Tehran: From Sacred to Radical - Paperback

by Asma Mehan (Author)

This book is an interdisciplinary research work designed to be of interest to a broad range of academics. The book examines the relationship between democracy and the (trans)formations of urban spaces in Iran.

Author Biography

Asma Mehan is an architect, researcher, and educator interested in architectural humanities and critical urban studies. She is an Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University, College of Architecture (TTU CoA). She was previously awarded four highly selective fellowships and grants, including the Scientific Employment Stimulus Individual fellowship funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the Urban Citizenship Fellowship supported by the Municipality of Amsterdam and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW) among others.

She achieved her Ph.D. in the "Architecture, History, and Project" program, in October 2017, from the Politecnico di Torino (Italy). Previously, she worked as a senior researcher at various European universities such as the University of Porto, Leiden University, Politecnico di Torino, and Berlin ZK/U center for Art and Urbanistics.

She has taught at TU Delft and Politecnico di Torino and has been invited as the guest lecturer at TU Munich, ZK/U Berlin Center for Art and Urbanistics, University of Porto, and Deakin University, Melbourne (Australia). Mehan has received several awards from prestigious institutions such as AESOP, EAHN (European Architectural History Network), Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), ZK/U Center for Art and Urbanistics Berlin, and Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB).

Her primary research and teaching interests include architectural humanities, critical urban studies, spatial planning, and heritage studies. Asma completed research stays in Australia (Deakin University, Melbourne, 2016-2017) and at the EPFL University, Lausanne, Switzerland (2017), and was a researcher in resident at the ZK/U Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin, 2019. She is the co-author of the book Kuala Lumpur: Community, Infrastructure, and Urban Inclusivity (London: Routledge, 2020).

She has authored over fifty articles and essays in scholarly books and professional journals in multiple languages on critical urban studies, architecture, urban planning, housing, and heritage studies. She has also been a member of several international scientific committees and conferences. Her research reaches academic audiences through international exhibitions, artistic venues, policy toolkits, visual media, journalistic blogs, and online outlets.