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Biography
To general modern readers
An Azeri, whose ancestors roamed and settled among Amardians, he was born to a labor-class family. The specific environment affected his childhood consciousness in a subtle way. Thus, in his young
imagination, there was the sea as a link between him and his utopian city beyond the sea.
He then entered the mysterious world of sounds, being enchanted by the magic of music.
The destructing process had begun with a process of inverse academic study in Tehran.
At the same time, his professional career started in some renowned architectural firms around 2008. He took part in the third edition of Farshid Musavi, the English architect.
In parallel with his career in other firms, he started his own design projects. Until 2013, he ran several educational courses and architectural workshops for one and a half year in national and international institutes and universities:
- Romania, participation in ‘Dynamic fields’ workshop by Patrik Schumacher, the assistant of Zaha Hadid.
- Armenia, teaching in the workshop set up by the Armenian Institute of Tumo: Center for Creative Technologies.
- Armenia, teaching in the BIM workshop set up by the National University of Architecture and Construction.
- Armenia, Participation in ‘Exploratory Form’ workshop set up by Narineh Mirzaeian, the chief project manager at Frank Gehry Partners based in Los Angeles.
- Iran, Teaching Design Courses at Sooreh University of Tehran.
He began to work with Professor Bahram Shirdel, an Iranian significant figure of architecture in the world, and it lasted until 2015.
For five years, any professional career was left off and he began a series of journeys abroad. All this proceeded with deep contemplation and self-purification in the form of a cycle touring-nomadic along the cycle of time by
A significant change has been made: To discard all previous illusory success.
Everything was put into practice anew.
It was developed in the form of a firm called ‘Babak Abdolghafari Atelier’.
Several of his projects were also awarded nationally as well as internationally.
States of life
To specific readers
“In every claimant, there resides a ‘I’”
An Azeri whose ancestors roamed and settled among Amardians, he was born to a labor-class family, in between two phases: mountain and sea, the mountain which is in continuous ascension towards the ideal world and the sea which is descended on the body of earth, immensely attracted and firm.
There is a symbol in the mean phase between these two. There is the hidden blessing of the equilibrium of earth and heaven. In that environment and in his unconscious young mind, the sea was always something special.
“What is beyond the sea”? I used to ask my dad.
”Soviet Union” He replied.
The conception that was developed as the result of my upbringing in a leftist family was exactly leading my mind to that utopian city.
Anyway, this had become the dogma:
The utopian city is beyond the sea.
Therefore, the sea functioned as a corridor between me and this world on one side and on the other, an imaginative world in which humans are settled in peace and have nothing to offer but goodness. For him, the sea is a medium for emancipation from the suffering of life and a remembrance of the taste left in memory.
The first conceptions were developed concerning the sea which is a mysterious and attractive motif for imagination.
The sea holds internal concepts:
- Naught: It is a huge paradox, a great nothing. The sea is the desert but colored blue, thus it speaks of naught like the desert.
- Splendor along with peace: It is in rest on the bed of the ocean as a massive leviathan and not a roaring lion in the jungle, a reposed splendor that has embraced the earth.
- Simplicity: In its path, from multiplicity to unity, the sea is standing still in its precise limit between simplicity and ingenuity. The whole sea is the accumulation of one matter and not many, the accumulation of water.
- Moderation: This accumulation, as paraphrased by ‘sea’, is reposed on earth by the most possible moderation and flexibility.
- Elegance: This whole which seems to be repeating, has not the same form in its parts. A wide range of colors is embedded in it as much as the vast universe. The elegant dancing waves represent the living soul of this seemingly sleeping sea.
His childhood days were passed in books left from his father’s previous job that were all deposited in the house. Also, there was a pen maker’s workshop in the cellar which was one of my favorite places. All this kindled the light of his first visions in childhood and thus, the joy of creation and discovery.
He entered the mysterious world of sounds, being enchanted by the magic of music. Music from everywhere in the world could attract him. There was no kind of music inferior to the other type in his musical mind. Love and redemption were tasted through music to some extent.
The destructing process had begun with a process of inverse academic study in Tehran.
At the same time, his professional career started in some renowned architectural firms around 2008. In this phase of wandering and place of ruin, there were in him the inverse ambitions of fame, success, and professional and social rank. Thus, he tried hard twice as much as a man could.
Until 2013, he ran several educational courses and architectural workshops for one and a half years in national and international institutes and universities.
He began to work with Professor Bahram Shirdel, an Iranian significant figure of architecture in the world, and it lasted until 2015.
During these seemingly dynamic and energetic years, he was getting poorer from within. As a habit, he took his seat beside the sea and sat in sorrow thinking of ‘what I want from the world?’ There were some temporal painkillers and purifying aids from the sea and though the appearance of pain was discarded, the internal challenges remained as powerful as before.
“Movement is a sign of deficiency”
It happened…
He left his professional career.
He tied the existing spiritual problems to the earthly ones. First, he drove around without any destination.
From within these struggles with himself, the bicycle – a friend of childhood- came out of the memories. Maybe the concordance of this cycle with the cycle of life could solve some problems.
He got engaged in cycling abroad and developing psychic projects within himself. These internal expeditions that were in a nomadic form changed the direction of previous illusory success.
The question of ‘who is self and non-self?’ challenged him severely.
Even concerning the profession, which is only an external manifestation, how could one claim to be a human and take human responsibility when he is in ignorance and has not truly known himself?
Again, as a personal habit, cycling became also personal. It became a spiritual workshop devoid of any sense of tourism or sport. It was a self-realization tool generated from all those questions.
Later, some facilities provided by cycling were discovered. The cycle gives us the possibility to move and travel. This correspondence with time – which is inherited from the nomadic lifestyle – could offer a way out of place and to set oneself free of needs.
With cycling there is the opportunity to be alone and at the same time in public.
In solitude, there is the chance to philosophize, search, and to see the manifested world better. These are all conditions of creation that are made possible in solitude.
Also, since people are likely to interact with cyclists, man could camp and find people to share his world, and it is itself a condition of purification.
This confrontation of – I against non-I – was unique and it was complete in the most possible condition of receiving and giving. The path of self-realization and emancipation from the illusion of mind became easier gradually in these passages.
The eyes were getting more and more open to the world, and I was calmed day by day by seeing this infinite exhibition of beauty, a place to study and seek.
It seemed that a rebirth was being generated.
The veils were put aside to some extent. A limited insight into these converging powers was achieved and on the other hand, some moral deficiencies were overcome in this process, those which annoyed him. All the time both sides were necessary for redemption, and a gradual spiritual maturity was being formed along with visions.
The chance of returning to society was made along with non-uniform material problems of life. Everything was put into practice anew.
It was developed in the form of a studio called ‘Babak Abdolghafari Atelier’.
In this cataclysmic world of today and among the crowd’s illusion of being knowledgeable, he based his approach on things that ‘are not ‘and not on those that ‘are‘.
This return is a return to another world,
a familiar one, simple, but deep, in which man as a pivot in the form of a tall standing cypress – but left and abandoned – is seeking his lost place.
he has lost his royal connection with the inner and outer world with all its properties. In this path, he uses the visionary power to read the book of the world and tries his best to revive the lost
faith,
will,
question,
creation,
process,
and respect.
This path could be generated in the mind of a passenger who has chosen a stony driveway in the middle of the night and believes only in the truth hidden in this passage.
Every sign speaks of the difficulty of this path but hope and the inner dimension of man is something else.
He sees profession in this way;
it seems that the Artifex (architect) deals with three things:
human, earth, and design which is the medium.
All concentration is on one question:
How the responsibility of ‘being human’ could be taken while man has not truly understood.
- Human, firstly, as an Artifex and then, the user with all of its complicated psychic phases and hidden layers within;
- Earth – and place as its representative – which is the scaled macrocosm and house as a womb embracing the human;
- And design which is a decision based on consciousness in accordance with accepting the one and rejecting many.
These are personal criteria for ‘what is not architecture’ and it refuses to claim, ‘what is architecture.’