The gaze of history on old Tehran

It has been described as Iran’s “most secular and liberal city”. Oliver Wainwright, writing for The Guardian, describes youthful rebellion in Tehran in the form of flirtations in traffic jams and hip-hop music blaring in a skatepark, and likens the city to “Los Angeles with minarets”. (Tehran was indeed designed by an Austrian immigrant to the United States, architect Victor Gruen, who pioneered the design of American shopping malls.)