Urmia radio and television centre was built in 1965 by one of the greatest architects of its time” Jahangir Darvish”.
This building was one of the first radio and television centres of Iran by that time. The goal was to expand and progress media and television in the northwest of the country. Its site is bigger than 3000 square meters and has been built on a hill, It gives a great view of the road for the passengers and because of its bright materials (brick and concrete), it literally glows in a clear sky. When looking from afar, it more looks like a crown and it is obvious that this building is way different from other buildings in the city. I can tell the only building which follows form and a specific type of style in the local area is this place which I will try to convert to something new.
I wish we had more buildings like this in our city (alive), because when you look at them you kind of feel that something about the place you’re living is special and it is more of an icon than a building. It seems the place used to be a big hall with no columns in the middle because of its very incredible structure which covers 1200 square meters of roofed space. I couldn’t find the buildings plan unfortunately but as it seemed when I visited the place there were no space separators in between nor walls and I’m pretty sure they used this place as a television studio (some parts of it) because it is designed to get less natural light inside of it. despite that, it has so many windows and entrances, again, inside it is quite dark there and it has only three light sheds on the roof (square-shaped). Coming to the current state of the building, it has been abandoned for over 30 years and over time the buildings interior space got destroyed by weather or unworthy people who stole infrastructure of the building and damaged its walls, but the building is fully standing, and to me, it is more resistance than any building in the city because they used high-quality materials and a stiff structure.
Coming to this challenge, I’m planning to repair and change its functionality, it’s such a shame that we haven’t made this building alive. I will try to convert this building into something new, fresh and green! My main purpose in this project will be a small contribution to limiting global warming.
I’m sure this is gonna be a great challenge for me and for everyone who is participating.
And one thing more about the name of the project, I think buildings have characters and they are like trees in the woods, they don’t speak but they say a lot about things we don’t already know, because of that I decided to name this project “Forsaken” since it is very unfair to leave them to be demolished one day. But who knows, maybe we will understand the deep meaning of reusing and restoring what we have instead of replacing and making something new. As they said: We can only see what is not there, and miss what is in front of us.
I also wanna thank all sponsors and Mr Ronen Bekerman
Good luck to everyone.