Hossein Amanat, born 1942 in Tehran, is an architect. He is best known for being the architect of the Azadi (Shahyad) Tower in Tehran, Iran, built in 1971. Amanat is also known for designing the Bahai Arc buildings in Haifa, Israel and the Bahai House of Worship in Samoa.
As a young graduate from the University of Tehran he won a nationwide competition in 1966 to design the Shahyad (the king memorial) Tower for the celebrations in honor of the 2,500-year anniversary of the Persian Empire, renamed to the Azadi Tower after the Revolution of 1979. Over the past decades, the monument has played iconographic backdrop to a diverse array of political and social movements. This first architectural project led to the opportunity to create some of Iran's most distinctive projects with reference to traditional Persian architecture. Amongst them are the initial buildings of the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, the Persian Heritage Center, the Faculty for Business Management of the Tehran University and the Embassy of Iran in Beijing, China. Amanat, as a member of prosecuted Bahai Faith, went to exile during the 1979 Iranian Revolution and never went back to Iran.
Since moving to Canada in 1980, Hossein Amanat, designed the three administrative buildings on the Bahai Arc in Haifa, Israel, the Bahai House of Worship in Samoa, the Jiang'an Library for the Sichuan University, the media library for the Beijing Broadcasting Institute. He also designed religious and cultural centers for the Bahai Faith near Dallas, Texas, Seattle and Washington, D.C., several multifamily condominiums in Santa Monica, California, and mixed-use high-rise buildings in San Diego, California and Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
Azadi Tower (former Shahyad Tower), Tehran
Azadi Square (former Shahyad Square), Tehran
The Seat of the Universal House of Justice, Bahai Arc complex on Mt. Carmel, Haifa, Israel
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