How Was Tehran’s Underground City Built?

The book ‘How Was Tehran’s Underground City Built?’ is a documented narrative of the ups and downs in the construction and development of Tehran’s urban railway (metro); a project that began with its first sparks during the Qajar era and, after passing through various historical periods, including the Pahlavi era, the Islamic Revolution, the Imposed War, and the reconstruction period, finally came to fruition relying on the knowledge and capabilities of Iranian engineers.

This book narrates the formation and progress of Tehran’s urban railway (metro); from its initial sparks in the Qajar era to the assignment of metro design and implementation to French companies in the pre-Revolutionary period. A section of the book addresses the political and social conditions at the end of the Pahlavi era, the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the Imposed War, and economic sanctions, showing how these factors led to the halt of the urban railway (metro) construction project.

With the start of the second term of the Islamic Consultative Assembly in 1984, the project once again received attention, and the metro construction process resumed. This work demonstrates that despite limitations, the efforts of Iranian engineers brought the project to completion. Before the Revolution, metro design was carried out with French collaboration and American equipment; but after the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s metro industry achieved self-sufficiency, and to date, over five billion urban trips have been made by metro, and this network has grown to 11 lines and 256 stations.

In a section of the book, we read: «After the approval of the metro’s continuation, twenty to thirty foreign companies came to Iran. Various companies announced that they were ready to build our metro. They knew the project was approved and offered proposals; they even invited us, and we, along with city officials, had several foreign trips. We went to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and saw their metros; but in the end, it was decided that the project would be carried out with domestic capabilities and that we would use foreign consultants.»

Sureh Mehr Publications has recently released the book ‘How Was Tehran’s Underground City Built?’ by Saeed Fakhrzadeh, in 496 pages and priced at 575,000 Tomans.