Bahar Eromi

This booklet encompasses my design for a factory that serves as a cultural and educational center that maintains knowledge as well as craft skills that have been passed down from previous generations. As the world is modernizing and as new advancements are being discovered, the past is beginning to fade away. Old motifs, traditions, and building styles are at stake of disappearing as people no longer have the skills to create such crafts. This center examines the relationship between the ancient East and the modern West through the creation of a museum-cultural arts center. An industrial cement factory is retrofitted into a Persian education zone to maintain the cultural heritage and craft skills of design elements from the past. Historic patterns and traditions of Eastern Iranian culture are married with the standard characteristics of a Western design. Through the careful employment of materials, relics, and modern technology, the resulting space blends high with low, community with tourism, old with new, and raw with refined.