Modernism as Heritage in Asia: A Cross Cultural Study in Tehran and Nanjing

The 20th-century-built environments are considered valuable heritage for the future generation initiated by the International Working Party for the Document and Conservation of Buildings, Sites and neighbourhoods of the Modern Movement. (DOCOMOMO) This paper compares the preservation trajectories of landmark modernist buildings in two countries in Asia during the 1930s in Tehran, Iran and Nanjing, China. While emerging from distinct political and cultural contexts, both buildings were conceived not only as evidence of adapting modern architecture principles into the local construction tradition, but also as architecture articulating new identities for Iran and China.

By focusing on these two parallel cases, the paper investigates how the legacy of modern architecture in Asia is recognised as modern heritage and has become a cultural resource for future regeneration. Drawing on archival research, heritage policy review, and the stakeholders’ analysis, the study examines how their projects have been preserved, altered, or neglected in response to shifting regimes, cultural values, and urban development pressures. The comparison investigates differences in how modern heritage is treated in Iran and China with the perspective of institutionalism, reflecting broader questions of memory, identity, and the reproduction of 20th-century architecture within rapidly transforming urban environments. In doing so, the paper contributes to ongoing debates around preserving the legacy of the modernism movement in Asia and the complex afterlives of its built forms.