Abbas Gharib

Abbas Gharib, (born 16 June 1942), is an Italian-based architect of Iranian origin. His approach to planning and design, which goes beyond the traditional modernism or contemporary format, has made him well-known as an influential figure in the research, practice, and teaching of post-contemporary art and architecture. Gharib was born in Tehran and raised in an Iranian lay family. The house where the family used to live was situated in the old center of the traditional part of Tehran. He completed his primary education in Tehran, Bersabé primary school, Saint Luis elementary and Ferdowsi middle school. In 1952, his family moved to a new house in the northern part of the city where he resided until 1960, when he received his diploma from Hadaf high school. In 1958 he made his first visit to Europe, where he decided to leave his native country definitively. He started living in Italy in 1962, where he enrolled to University IUAV of Venice. He stayed in Venice until 1973, taking part in the educational and artistic city life. As a child and later as a student, he was talented in geometric and drawing subjects, therefore in adulthood he took up an interest for architecture. In 1972 he married an Italian architect, Sandra Villa and from that marriage they had two children, Samì (12 January 1972) now sociologist, and Leila (28 February 1983), now musician. In May 1958, at the end of an extensive travel through the main European Capitals and cities, Gharib, then aged sixteen, made his first stay to Italy, as well as to Rome, where he was deeply impressed by the beauty of this city and the richness of its art and architecture heritage. In 1960, therefore, he returned to Europe, principally to Italy, moving through the peninsula from north to south and finally to Venice. The beauty of Venice and its cultural and artistic lifestyle, in the presence of creative figures like Peggy Guggenheim, Lucio Fontana, Allen Ginsberg, Ezra Pound, Carlo Scarpa in the Sixties and Seventies, influenced him to such an extent that he decided to settle there, moving away from his original area of intellectual life in Tehran: a decision which was basic to his consecutive formation.