MEET THE SPEAKER\\ Habibeh Madjdabadi, founder Habibeh Madjdabadi Architecture Office, Iran

Habibeh Madjdabadi, founder of Habibeh Madjdabadi Architecture Office in Iran, will join SHARE Hungary Forum 2024 offering insights into her architectural and artistic explorations.

Habibeh Madjdabadi is a well-known Iranian architect, designer, author and speaker, with an internationally recognised work. She founded her own practice in 2003, soon after having graduated from Azad University of Tehran and after winning the first prize in the design competition of restoring a historical building (belonging to the Zand dynasty) in Iran. At that time, she also started to collaborate with the architectural magazine MEMAR, considered one of the most influential Iranian publications, as a member of the editorial board. Her professional profile has gained since then numerous facets, going beyond architecture and including successful endeavours in design, conceptual art, installations and craftsmanship. Moreover, she is an experienced speaker, having held numerous inspirational lectures in Italy, Austria, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia, Albania, Jordan, Czech Republic and Cyprus. Her work has been exhibited in Venice Biennale, TU Vienna University and Melbourne University. Habibeh Madjdabadi was included in the selection of the 2023 book „100 Women Architects in Practice” which carefully gathered the most influential voices in the field of architecture and acknowledged women’s contribution to the built environment, thus showcasing how their visions, methods and models of leadership are essential to connecting the needs of humans and the planet. She has received numerous accolades, her work being shortlisted for Aga Khan Award 2016 and Tamayouz Women in Architecture and Construction Award 2019, winning the Chicago Award 2014, Worldwide Brick Award 2014, and MEMAR Award 2014. She is involved in international projects such as the design of the Norwegian embassy and Italian School in Tehran.

 

 

She is constantly exploring and researching the best means of expressing her visions, as her take on architecture is strongly intertwined with artistic approaches. Her endeavours are deeply rooted in tradition and context, while also being contemporary and conceptual. The role of culture and geographical matters are always taken into consideration when starting and constructing a project. As she is coming from a country with a long history of craftsmanship and a strong connection between construction and the local techniques, materials, people, Habibeh Madjdabadi is preoccupied to pay respect to all these matters and to naturally incorporate them in her work. The imperfection and approximation of hand-made work is intentionally used, valorised and led by her to create unique pieces, involving workers in the process of creating architecture as an art object which belongs to all. In this sense, materiality is a vital aspect of her work as she tries to uncover the poetic side of the materials by underlining their natural attitude and their interaction with the human body, through an artisanal modus operandi.

 

 

More on Habibeh Madjdabadi’s approach can be found in the open conversation between the architect and Andreea Robu-Movila (publisher SHARE Architects) during SHARE conference Tirana 2018: share-architects.com/in-dialogue-habibeh-madjdabadi-about-designing-the-profile-of-the-future-architect/