Noureddin Kianouri

Noureddin Kianouri (1915–1999) was an Iranian construction engineer, Urban planner Professor of Bauakademie der DDR in Berlin and a communist political leader.

Dr. Aḵhtar kianouri his greater sister was one of founder of women's organizations in Iran and her marriage in 1925 to the prominent communist Abdossamad Kambakhsh had a lasting effect on kianouri's political orientation.

He studied first at University of Tehran until 1934 and later in Germany from 1934 to 1939.

Before his return to Iran he practiced architecture as well though he is mostly remembered as a construction engineer in Munich office of Philipp Holzmann.

After completing his high school education at Dār al-Fonun (q.v.), Kiānuri entered the Engineering Faculty of the newly founded University of Tehran (see FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN) in September 1934 (Kiānuri, 1942, p. 52).

In 1935, Kianouri left Iran for Germany to commence his undergraduate studies in architecture at the Technische Hochschule Aachen (Technical University of Aachen).

He initially received financial support from his brother and from a cousin residing in Aachen.

At the university, he became acquainted with leftist students and briefly participated in a Marxist reading circle, but he was not affiliated with the “Group of Fifty-Three” (Goruh-e panjāh o se nafar), a circle of leftist intellectuals led by Taqi Arāni (q.v.) that gained much publicity after its members were detained by the authorities in 1937 (Kiānuri, 1992, pp. 55–56).

In November 1938, he received his diploma (HArch, 1368a).

Shortly thereafter, he was employed by the Philipp Holzmann Company in Munich, a German firm commissioned to build a new hospital for the University of Tehran Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex -before Iranian Revolution called 1000 beds hospital that is the biggest hospital in Iran- (Kianouri, 1992, p. 59).

At the same time, he began working on his civil engineering doctoral thesis "Krankenhausbau für Iran, Der heutige Stand und die Neuordnung der Volksgesundheits-und Kranken-Fürsorge in Iran" ”.

(The Construction of Hospitals for Iran), which focused on the medical infrastructure in Iran.

After attending the University of Tehran, he was trained in Germany, and graduated from the University of Aachen in 1939.

His thesis was on the Healthcare & Hospital Constructions in Iran.

He successfully defended his thesis at the Technische Hochschule Aachen in September 1939 (Kianouri, 1942, p. 52; HArch, 1368b).

In the early 1940s he married feminist and communist activist Maryam Firouz daughter of Abdol-Hossein Farman Farma; at the time he taught structure at Tehran University.

Throughout the period he had an active political and professional life, and was one of the few educated Iranian construction engineers and architects in 1940's. He was one of the first members of the Association of Iranian Architects (1945), which was placed in charge of major housing developments in the city of Tehran.

The Association put in place the guidelines of the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne, and translated them into "building codes, regulations, and protocols that had the fundamental role in shaping the Middle East's first modern metropolis".

Kianouri was described as a "key figure", who formulated the organization's theoretical and ideological mission statements.

Their ideology was influential in the design and construction of mass housing projects in Tehran during the late 1940s and 1950s.

On 29 September 1941, within a month of Reza Shah’s abdication, a group of recent graduates from European universities and former political activists announced the formation of an Iranian communist party: the Tudeh Party (the Party of the Masses).

Besides their political activities in the form of demonstrations and gatherings, they set out to train and educate the public, specifically the working and middle classes.

About a year after foundation of Tudeh Party he joined the party with the membership number 444 in May 1942.

On the political side, he joined the Tudeh Party in 1942 about a year after its foundation, and was a member of the Tudeh Party's central committee in 1945, one of the party's "key figures".

During 1946 the Tudeh Party extended its activities with a view to mobilizing middle-class, working-class, and intellectuals.

The mission resulted in the formation of numerous groups, circles, and clubs as sympathizers of the Tudeh Party or associated organizations, namely Women’s Association, Youth Association, Officers’ Organization, Students’ Association, Writers’ Association, and Association of Iranian Architects.

The role of Association of Iranian Architects was quite fundamental; the discourse of domesticity was at the centre of their political programme to mobilize urban society, addressing women (workers) in particular as a forgotten half of the active political mass.

Later he became one of the influential members of the Central Committee for the communist Tudeh Party, Following the 1953 Iranian coup d'état the party was banned and Kianouri was imprisoned.

He fled, and lived in Italy and later East Germany; under the pseudonym "Dr. Silvio Macetti" he was an influential architect and theorist of socialist architecture and city planning.

After his second return to Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, he continued his political activities and acted as the Tudeh party's general secretary from 1979 to 1984.

Again he came under scrutiny, and again the party was banned.

Kianouri was arrested and tortured (and so was his wife), and read a forced confession on national TV.

His father Shaikh Mehdi was assassinated six months before Kianouri's birth (Kiānuri, 1992, pp. 33–36).

His much older sister Aḵtar, too, later became a prominent member of the Tudeh party (Kianouri, 1992, pp. 38–39).

His family connection with Abdossamad Kambakhsh later also facilitated Kianouri's close.

After two years of study, he was able to secure a scholarship from the Iranian Ministry of Roads (Kianouri, 1992, pp. 58–59).

He was released and placed under house arrest, and died on 5 November 1999.

Kianouri was born in Nur, Iran Province Mazandaran.

he was son of Shaikh Mehdi Nuri Mazandarani and Zahrā Solṭāni Nuri Mazandarani.

His grandfather Sheikh Fazlollah Noori, and great-grandfather was Mirza Husain Noori Tabarsi.