Nader Ardalan

Nader Ardalan (born 9 March 1939 ) is an Iranian American architect, urban planner, educator, theorist, and author. Ardalan has had a significant impact on contemporary architecture in Iran, the Middle East, and North America as an architect, researcher, and theoretician. book The Sense of Unity. He holds legal citizenship in Iran and the United States.

Early life and education Ardalan was born in Tehran, Iran, to a middle-income family.

In 1966, Ardalan joined Abdul Aziz Farmanfarmaian in Tehran, Ardalan has undertaken other nonprofit research projects in Iran and the Persian Gulf.

Academia From 1968 to 1971, Ardalan was a Visiting Instructor of Architecture at the Department of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, where he worked gratis and directed a student research project on documenting Indigenous Iranian Architecture & Planning. Selected portions of the resulting research documents were incorporated into the 1973 book The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture, published by University of Chicago Press.

In 1977, he was invited to hold joint positions as a visiting design critic at the Yale School of Architecture and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, followed in 1978 by a position as visiting critic of architecture at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. In February 2011, he joined the Harvard Graduate School of Design as Senior Research Associate to direct, over a three-year period, a 1,000-page research book on the eight countries of the Gulf, published in 2018 as Gulf Sustainable Urbanism, and sponsored by the Qatar Foundation. The Kennedy School later sponsored his research for the Kuwait National Green Campus Initiative, with John Spengler. Since his move in 2015 to Naples, Florida, he has served as the Senior Advisor on the proposed Harvard GSD Project on South Florida and Sea Level.

Ardalan has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard, MIT, Yale, Tehran University, and lectures widely. Ardalan and Bakhtiar have three children, including Iran Davar. The couple divorced in 1976 in Tehran. In 1977, Ardalan married Shahla Ganji, and they have one child. Masjid al-Haram and the Holy Ka’ba: Research based upon records made available in Mecca and others in the British Museum that documented a history of the Holy Ka’ba from its ancient beginnings to the present time. Completed for the Ministry of Finance and National Economy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In English and Arabic, 1975. Pardisan Environmental Park, The Mandala Collaborative/WMRT, Winchell Press, 1975. Habitat Bill of Rights: Residential & Community Design Guidelines for the United Nations Habitat Conference, with Jose Lluis Sert, Moshe Safdie, George Candilis and BK Doshi, 1976. Blessed Jerusalem: Preservation studies of the visual, functional and spiritual character of the Old City, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, 1981. Historic Renovation of the American Mission Hospital, Dar al Athar, Kuwait, 2000. El Sentido De La Unidad, La Tradición Sufi En La Arquitectura Persa, Ardalan, Nader, Bakhtiar, Laleh, Ediciones Siruela, 2007 Re-conceiving the Built Environment of the Gulf Region: Sustainable design research, guidelines and design applications, Art & Architecture Magazine, Fall, 2007- Guest Editor. New Arab Urbanism: The Challenge to Sustainability and Culture in the Persian Gulf by Nader Ardalan & Steven Caton, Harvard Kennedy School, 2010. Persian Gulf Sustainable Urbanism: Harvard University & Msheireb Properties, A subsidiary of Qatar Foundation, published 2018, Nader Ardalan, Co-Senior Editor.