ASA North transforms a 1920 beer distillery into a contemporary museum in Tehran

The redesign of a 100-year-old disused beer distillery in downtown Tehran into a contemporary museum is described as a 'second chance' as against 'preservation' by its leading architect Ahmadreze Schricker of New York-based practice Ahmadreza Schricker Architecture – North (ASA North). The result is a restraint conversation tying the built form with its context, materiality, and heritage, however in differing interpretations. The transformation of the Argo Brewery into the Argo Contemporary Art Museum and Cultural Centre is distinguished for multiple reasons. One, it led to the making of the first private contemporary art museum in Tehran since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Two, the urban activation resulting from the place serving as a melting pot for artists and local people has spurred a cultural revitalisation of the neighbourhood and the city beyond. Three, the intervention sensitively opened up the built fabric to slot new expanded spaces to house the museum’s diverse programmes, while retaining the sanctity of the 1920’s structural composition.

ASA North was commissioned by the Pejman Foundation – an Iran-based non-profit art institute – to craft its home within the brewery that remained unused since 1970. Together with American practice Hobgood Architects, who were involved in the concept stage of the project, Schricker beautifully intervened into the architectural remnants of the factory to carve out a range of contemporary spaces which include a public courtyard, six distinct galleries, a library, a high capacity auditorium, artist residency spaces, private studio apartment, art-shop, a penthouse level observatory, offices, and a non-alcoholic bar serving re-issued Argo draft beers.

The driving approach to the intervention was about tapping into the urban morphology of the neighbourhood to draw new elements into the built fabric, at the same time retaining the factory's original exposed brick walls. This conversation between the old and new was backed by a sound structural design, led by engineer Behrang Bani Adam who is currently based out of Adelaide, Australia. Some of the new structural additions to the brewery include insertion of new structural foundations, the design of five floating roofs, and inclusion of a new poured in place grand staircase in the main gallery, spanning 12-metres in length and erected without any support.

To know more about the project which is one of the six winners of the 2022 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, STIR speaks with Iranian-Austrian architect Ahmadreza Schricker in an email conversation.

The following italicised text are the edited excerpts from the exchange.

Where the old and the new crossbreed

Argo's structure was left abandoned for the past 57 years and during that time, the roof material was stripped and its beams carried-off by neighbours, the factory was roofless and in a state of desolation. And of course we should never tear down a hundred-year-old industrial building we can still use, but this anecdotal fact about Argo aside, in Iran, there still exists many other buildings with traditional local architecture of their time, worthy of preservation. In comparison to them, for me Argo Factory is not a historical building, with its many industrial architectural twins around the world… so I never worshipped Argo, and this lack of admiration allowed us to redefine it as something its original architects did not intend for it to be and at the same time, against my lack of admiration for it, I love Argo… After our efforts, today, from outside, Argo looks very much as it once did about a 100 years ago with the exception of the newly inserted floating roofs, and from the inside the old and new in the Argo museum crossbreed.