Discovering Architecture

During the final years of high school, my older brother was studying at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Tehran. Through him I began to hear about different fields of study.

Architecture was one of them.

At the time, university admission was organized through a multi-stage examination process. The first stage was a national exam that determined eligibility for higher education. After that, specialized exams were required for each faculty.

For the Faculty of Fine Arts, the process included a practical examination called “Antique Drawing.” Applicants had to draw classical sculptures or objects placed in front of them.

For someone who had never formally studied drawing, this seemed almost impossible.

One of my classmates, Haj Rasouli, was a year ahead of me and had been taking painting lessons. He agreed to help me prepare. In the afternoons after school we practiced drawing objects, shadows, and simple compositions.

At first my drawings were clumsy. Proportions were wrong, lines were hesitant. But gradually the act of observing objects carefully began to change the way I saw things.

Drawing forced attention.

You had to measure distances with your eyes, notice angles, see how light defined form. A simple object on a table became a study of relationships.

Without realizing it, I was learning the first lessons of architecture.