Sabine Wieber, Jugendstil Women and the Making of Modern Design (London: Bloomsbury, 2022), 227 pp. incl. 14 plates and 55 ills, ISBN 9781350088528, £85

Abstract

(1866–71), the Parsi elite usually opted for variants of European architecture, such as the gothic revival, knitting their community more firmly into the urban fabric. In the third chapter, Grigor unpacks the evolution of the Persian revival style on home turf, in Iran. Here she attempts (convincingly, in my view) to establish the style as part of the wider modernisation of Qajar and Pahlavi Iran. Although posited initially in the immediate post-Safavid era, it was mostly employed under Naser al-Din Shah and into the Pahlavi period. From the early twentieth century onwards (until the late 1930s), more and increasingly lavish buildings were erected, with full-blown modern, state-sponsored renditions of the style: banks, police stations and government buildings appeared as up-to-date versions of Persepolitan temples, marked most visibly by monumental talar frontages. In this context, the Persian revival articulated a burgeoning national identity, reaching back into a glorified past. These buildings, Grigor observes, including the National Bank in Tehran (1933–35) by A. Hemmrich and the Tehran police headquarters (1933) by Ghalitch Baqlian and Haj Beheshti, representing ‘perfected and sanitized ministries [...] were not only the aesthetic expression of a staunchly ethnonationalist state but also the final chapter in the long (art) history of the Persian Revival’. Although the Persian revival was a rather minor phenomenon compared to the prevalence of other revival styles, in British India and elsewhere, it is nonetheless interesting and important. Grigor’s rigorous analysis of its development over nearly 200 years defines its scholarly and political contours with remarkable insight for the first time. The study is particularly important for students of architecture in British India, as the Persian revival adds a new dimension not only to India’s rich architectural history, but also to how we understand the complexities of indigenous agency. The only substantive criticism I have of the book is that it could have been better illustrated, especially as it is an exposé of a largely neglected genre. There is also little spatial analysis of the buildings, which remain rather mysterious. Many were no doubt difficult if not impossible to access, but it left me wondering what historical drawings and plans exist. The study is therefore a history of an idea more than a full architectural history. Nevertheless, it is monumental and ground-breaking in its own way.