Introduction
Consumption is a sustaining part of the human condition; like a living
organism ingesting, digesting and excreting. Raw materials of social
life are provided by the core activities of this organism: production,
distribution and disposal (Dalgliesh, 2014). Consumption, known as an
ideological act, conditions the social life through spaces as other
mediators. The social and spatial networks of consumption let the
development of contemporary cities, which commonly engage with favorable
images and dreams of people. In that sense, the city of Tehran, as an
eastern globe city, strikingly experiences the act of consumption and
its consequential reflections onto the spatial organizations and social
practices. Since the beginning of the 1920s, Tehran has been under the
impacts of Modern capitalism and increasing consumption, which have been
infused into everyday practices of its citizens. Many people are
motivated to become consumers in fantasy as well as in reality;
spatial productions and social practice have moved towards production of
spaces that serve consumption as the dominant act of the contemporary
society.
Tehran, with its nearly 500 years of history, was originally formed
according to the spatial organization of Grand Bazaar. Transformation of
Tehran, to its contemporary form, has started by the time of
modernization of the country in the first Pahlavi period. ‘First
Pahlavi’ (1920s- 1940s) Tehran was a city with monuments and public
buildings representing the nation state and demonstrating power. Thus
dynamism of the nation was political in that time. Growing desire
towards modern lifestyle in Tehran has led to transformations in the
urban image and types of social activities; and these changes have been
results of Iran entering a capitalist phase. Thus, dynamism of the
society has changed by the domination of the act of consumption since
the mid-twentieth century. The 21st century Tehran is
dominated by buildings such as shopping malls, entertainment centers and
public parks, which evidently show that the dynamism of the nation has
changed to commercial. By the expansion of the city, Tehran has turned
into a network of programmed leisure.
The process of modernization, development and population of the city has
caused a dramatic transformation of Tehran during the recent 100 years.
As Amirhamadi and Kianfar (1993) explained, as a third world city,
Tehran’s dramatic transformation was characterized with two parallel
tendencies:
A rapid complex socio-cultural and economic development;
An extensive and cumulative uneven distribution of profit among social
classes and neighborhoods.
Thus, the rapid development and outgrowing contradictions in Tehran
reflect the city’s transformation process in which a pre-capitalist
setting during a period between 18th and early
20th centuries became a transitional capitalist city
between 1920s and 1950s; and changed into a capitalist city during the
1950s (Figures 1&2).