Azadi Square

There is a great square in the southwest of Tehran, called “Azadi Square” that whoever arrives at Tehran will stop for a while and watch this tower and visit inside it.
At the end of the 1960s, the Pahlavi regime was at the 2,500th-anniversary ceremony of the Imperial of Iran, and the regime was planning to build a structure which the people of other countries who travel to Iran would remember as a sign of Iran.
The central celebration council set up a tournament to design a tower. Among the proposals proposed to this council, Mr. Hoseyn Amanat’s plan was selected and more than $23.8 million was officially spent for the construction of it, for reasons such as land purchase and preparation, construction of the tower, and the construction of a museum.
The construction of this tower lasted 30 months and ended in 1971. The name of this tower was “Cyrus’s Gate,” later it was renamed as “The remembrance of the Shah Aryamehr” and opened on October 16, 1971, by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, accompanied by his court and foreign guests. Foreign guests came to Iran to attend the 2,500th-anniversary celebrations.

This tower has four bases, a tablet of gold is buried under the northwest corner, in which the features of the building and the time of the beginning and the end of the construction were written.
The architectural style of this tower is a combination of Islamic and ancient types of architecture the height of the tower is 45 metres and the height below the roof is 23 metres to the ground. The stairs and elevators are built at the base of the tower, which is used to visit the top of the tower. Under the ground floor of this complex is a museum of ancient artifacts and a modern museum that has historical works from ancient Iran and Iran after the entrance of Islam.
When the tower was opened, foreign guests, kings and presidents from other countries who travel to Iran were set to cross this route, and also the Military parade which was held in front of the Shah on the Karaj Road arrived at Azadi Square and the ceremony ended in this square.
In 1978, when the Iranian Revolution approached its victorious point, the Azadi Square was a gathering place for protesters against the Shah’s regime. People gathered at the three large demonstrations in the area that brought them to Tehran from different parts of the country.

These three great days were the ninth and tenth of Muharram (December 10/11, 1978) and Arba’in on January 19, 1979. The route the people chose in these three days was that from different parts of Tehran they came to the main streets leading to the square and in the form of large and small groups, they brought their mourning to the square.
The demonstrations held by the people in these three days were unique throughout Iran’s history, in which millions who were against the Shah were martyred in the streets of Tehran. Since then, the people of Iran have changed the name of this square to “Azadi Square,” previously people had named the square “Shahyad” (The Shah’s Memorial).

On February 1, 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran Again, people who had travelled to Tehran from all parts of the country, gathered in Azadi Square.
Several hours before the arrival of Ayatollah Khomeini from Paris to Tehran, people gathered in this square and the streets around it and were waiting eagerly to see their leader. Ayatollah Khomeini, who was the leader of this revolution, was exiled for fifteen years, first to Turkey, then to Iraq, and then to Paris.
After the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the name of this square was changed to the Azadi Square and is the largest square in Tehran. Now that many years have passed since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, people gather in this square on February 11, 1979.