Iran has one of the oldest town cultures in the world. It goes back more than 4,000 years. Between the Islamic conquest in the seventh century and the westernisation in the second half of the nineteenth century, the cities and towns in todays ­Islamic ­Republic of Iran underwent repeated changes. The ­Persian building culture influenced architects and artists as far as Central Asia in the north and India in the east. Unlike any other oriental country, Iran shows a unique urban and architectonic development whose defining characteristics merged with other cultures over the course of time, representing an important contribution to world architecture. In his Architectural Guide Iran, the author and architect Thomas Meyer-Wieser embarks on a journey into history, showcasing nearly 300 buildings and projects in Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz. His focus is on the identity of the Iranian-Islamic architecture, which has held its own since the rise of the Safavids in 1501.

Thomas Meyer-Wieser is an architect and urban planner. He is a graduate of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and has had a keen interest in the archi­tecture and town planning of the Islamic world since his university days. He did practical training with Modam Consulting Architects in Tehran, and in 1979 he worked on a UNESCO project for the consolidation and restoration of the Sassanid ­Palace Ghala Dokhtar in Firuzabad, Iran. Between 1995 and 2002, he was Lecturer in the Landscape Architecture Division of the Technical University Rapperswil. Thomas Meyer-Wieser is the author of the Architectural Guide Cairo, published in 2014 by DOM Publishers.