About the production and sale plan of Ferdous Garden; An unforgivable mistake

Charso Press: On November 21, 1401, the decree on the generation of government assets, approved in the 67th session of the Supreme Council for Economic Coordination of the Heads of Power, was approved by the Supreme Leader, and based on it, the Supreme Board for the Generation of Government Assets composed of seven members was formed, including Mohammad Mokhbar, Seyyed Ahsan Khandozi, Ahmad Vahidi, Mehrdad Bazarpash and Masoud Mirkazemi, together with a representative from the judiciary and a representative from the parliament, will be responsible for determining the scope of the government’s surplus property. On February 22, the first phase of the production site was unveiled. On entering the site, in the “Approved Surplus Assets” section, we come across two files, one named “Ministry of Education” and the other named “Ministry of Jihad Agriculture”. Upon entering the “Property List of the Ministry of Education” in the Tehran city subcategory, the name of a place can be seen, which causes a lot of surprise. Two properties named “Bagh Ferdous”, both located in district one of Tehran. Seeing the name “Firdous Garden” in District 1 of Tehran, without a doubt, does not bring to mind a building other than the Cinema Museum, although the public relations of this cultural place have denied the occurrence of such an event.

“The ownership of Ferdous Garden is shared between the Tehran Municipality and the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Education, like the House of Artists. According to the agreement that was made during the presence of Gholamhossein Karbaschi in Tehran Municipality, these buildings were handed over by the municipality to the Ministry of Islamic Culture, as long as they are used for cultural purposes. Therefore, as long as these buildings are used culturally, they belong to the user, that is, the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Education.” Behrouz Gharibpour, writer and theater director, founder of “Aran” Puppet School and one of the well-known and capable cultural directors, says this in response to the question of which entity owns the ownership of Ferdous Garden now, so that this question becomes more prominent that how is it named It is listed in the list of “Properties of the Ministry of Education”. He is so surprised and impressed by hearing this news that he points to Ferdous Garden on Molvi Street in Tehran and says that maybe the gentlemen meant that place, although the mention of the phrase “Zone 1” in front of “Ferdous Garden” disappoints such hope and According to Gharibpour, it leads to the conclusion that such an event can only happen in a nightmare.

A cultural heritage with unique architecture

Behrooz Gharibpour, who has a history of being an advisor to the CEO of Cinema Museum, and one of the cultural places of Ferdous Garden; Farhad Mehrad’s house is the result of his design and management, he begins his talk about this cultural place in a conversation with his compatriot as follows: “First, I want to mention three periods of time and three memories of Ferdows Garden. Ferdows Garden witnessed two historical performances before the revolution. One is Jerzy Grotowski’s “Everlasting Prince”, which was immensely valuable in its time. Another event was the performance of the Shida group led by Mohammad Reza Lotfi and the singing of Mohammad Reza Shajarian, which was considered extremely important in terms of helping the survival of national music. These two events are among the events that determine the cultural importance of Ferdows Garden before the revolution. The third event is related to after the revolution. When Mir Mahmoud Mousavi, the brother of Mir Hossein Mousavi, called me and announced that the objects of the Performing Arts Museum that were kept in Ferdous Garden to be displayed in the World Theater Museum have been auctioned and if you don’t reach out to them, these objects will be sold. became. I reached Ferdows Garden and prevented this from happening by talking to the officials who were planning to do that wrong thing. Then, with the cooperation of the Center for Performing Arts and the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Youth, I transferred the mentioned objects to Saad Abad Palace so that they would be safe from the hands of people who do not pay attention to culture and are unaware of the importance of cultural heritage. These memories are not for sale, these memories are memorable and a reminder of what cries and efforts have been made to preserve the cultural heritage.

This Muslim master of puppet opera said: “The Ferdows Garden building, although it contains some practical side cultural spaces, but the major part of it belongs to the cinema museum, and the cinema museum contains a cultural flow that is more than 100 years old, and therefore museums are absolutely not private. “, he adds: “In addition to this architecture, Ferdows Garden has coordinates that are unique among the types of Iranian architecture. For example, the construction of the Ferdows cinema’s Moqransi dome is a unique architectural phenomenon, and I was able to watch this dome from a window close to it because I was an advisor to the CEO of the Cinema Museum. This dome is built in a very rare and spectacular way, and its dome is preserved with a thick rope, without connecting to any other point, which is considered an architectural masterpiece. Therefore, Ferdous Garden is a rare space, both in terms of history and cultural events, in terms of architectural coordinates, and in terms of the cultural places in it, including the cinema museum. Handing over such a space naturally does not mean neglecting the cultural heritage. Therefore, whoever did such an act and included the name of Ferdows Garden in the list of surplus property, has made an irreparable mistake. This incident is one of the rare occurrences and a very wrong decision and the result of neglecting the cultural heritage. In my opinion, this could only happen in a nightmare.”

Buying and selling Ferdows garden and thinking about selling it again

Earlier, in a long article entitled “The Invisible Moqrans of the Sky and the Voice of Shajarian”, published in the “Naghah No” quarterly magazine, Gharibpour had described the mentioned moqrans as follows: “I stare at the ceiling and the moqrans of the hall drive me crazy, the mania of the new son-in-law of the architect – Muir al-Molk, I remember the son of Nizam al-Molk, who wanted to build a poetic mansion for his beloved, the daughter of Naser al-Din Shah, and to show her that she is not just a suitor among thousands of suitors. He has a privileged existence and can make that suspended poem with plaster and white paint and play poetry and sing poetically with the plasterer’s claw. The moqrans of Ferdous Garden Hall are the historical moqrans of mosques, but they are bare and bare like water and fire and green and sky.

Pointing out that “Firdous Garden was bought and sold several times during the Qajar period before it became a cultural place during the second Pahlavi period”, Gharibpour adds: “Perhaps this change of hands has given the officials the impression that it can be sold While when those events happened, Ferdous garden belonged to one of the Qajar princes and because it was not possible to maintain it after his death and it had become a semi-abandoned garden, it was sold and then bought by the government during the second Pahlavi period and turned into It became a cultural place. At the beginning of the revolution, it became a cinema school, then a cinema museum.”

Summary Behrouz Gharibpour’s words, like any other sympathetic artist, are sorry for the possible loss of Ferdows Garden and he says, if such an event happens, the only way to react to it is with “Vafriyada”.