Abdol-Aziz Mirza Farmanfarmaian
Abdolaziz Farmanfarmaian was an Iranian architect, offspring of Iranian nobleman Abdol-Hossein Farman Farma and a member of the Qajar dynasty of Iran. In 1976, the company known as AFFA was created for the design of the Aryamehr Stadium which after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 was renamed to Azadi Stadium.
Abdol Aziz Farman-Farmaian was born in Shiraz in 1920 as the tenth son of Prince Abdol-Hossein Farman Farma, at the time Governor General of the province of Shiraz. In 1928, at the age of 8, he was sent to school in France, where he remained for his primary and secondary education at Lycée Michelet in Paris until 1938. A brief trip to Iran during the short summer of 1935 was his first contact as an adolescent with his family. He received his Baccalaureate degree in 1938. Prince Abdol Hossein Mirza organised Mr. Desiré Roustan, a leading French philosopher and writer, as the guardian for four of his sons, including Abdol Aziz Farman-Farmaian. Architectural studies were initiated in the École Spéciale d'Architecture, where he started to prepare for the Beaux Arts School. The onset of World War II broke the continuity of his studies, and he had to leave for Iran in 1940, where he stayed until 1945. During this period of worldwide uncertainty, he worked at different jobs such as: Tehran Municipality, Karnsaks, and the Ministry of Culture (Vezarat-e Pishehonar).
In 1975, AFFA's rating in the plan organization was ranked first in Iran as a design and engineering consultant organization.
Tehran Master Plan
Partnered with the American firm of Victor Gruen Associates, Farmanfarmaian proposed his most important project, the Master plan of Tehran. This comprehensive plan, which was approved in 1968, identified the city's problems to be high density, expansion of new suburbs, air and water pollution, inefficient infrastructure, unemployment, and rural-urban migration. To deal with these problems, the consortium envisioned a 25-year planning horizon, which encouraged reducing the density and congestion of the city center through polycentric developments around Tehran. Eventually, the whole plan was 'marginalized' by the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the subsequent Iran–Iraq War.
