Reyhan Gate

location: Mazandaran Province, Iran

program: set of new gates to a residential complex facing the Caspian Sea.

dates: 2013

data: total built area 400 m2

architect: waltritsch a+u, Arch. Dimitri Waltritsch Trieste, Italy
in collaboration with Rndr Studio


Constructing a gate to a residential complex might be considered a privilege for an architect, as it allows him to get in touch with the most intimate side of people’s everyday life. The entrance will warmly receive the people back home, and bless them before they leave for their daily activities in the world. We have taken our deep fascination for several gems of Iranian architecture to a point of re-interpretation, allowing us a great dose of freedom in doing so. We are concerned not only with beautiful forms of the Iranian tradition, but with topics like light, scale, decoration and with the art and crafts tradition of carpets and clothing as well. All of that has been summarized into a simple and delicate gesture, in an inverted motion for entering as well as for exiting the site, and materialized through the use of polished reinforced white concrete columns, and corrugated corten steel plates. The so constructed gate, gently placed on a green flower bed, becomes an iconic signal for the driver passing along the coast road, and part of the deep identity of the resident of the villa complex.


Images and text © D. Waltritsch. Use only by permission.