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Hassanzadeh A, Moradi M, Karimi S. (2025). The Architecture of Anxiety and People’s Lived Experience of Space in Wartime: An Ethnographic Study of the Twelve-Day War in Tehran. Athar. 46(110), 65-84. doi:10.61882/Athar.2865.2035
URL: http://athar.richt.ir/article-2-2035-en.html

ollowing the recent military incidents and rising public fears of aerial or missile attacks in Iran, the citizens of Tehran encountered a new and anxiety-laden experience of their everyday spaces. This article, based on ethnographic research, analyzes how Tehran’s residents lived and perceived urban and domestic spaces during moments of threat and crisis. The central question concerns how fear and insecurity caused by wartime threats transform the meaning, function, and spatial perception of ordinary places such as homes, streets, subways, courtyards, staircases, rooftops, and public areas. Through qualitative interviews, participant observation, and analysis of popular narratives collected during the Twelve-Day War period, the study reveals that Tehran’s urban space is not merely a physical structure but also a spatial dimension of identity—a psychosocial and emotional ground for the reinterpretation of space. During times of alerts or rumored attacks, some places were redefined as “symbolic shelters,” while others were perceived as “zones of maximum insecurity.” The study also explores how collective memories of past catastrophes—such as the Bam earthquake, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s—shape current spatial perception and emotional geographies of fear. By comparing these experiences, the article conceptualizes the “architecture of anxiety” as a dynamic system of lived spatial relations under threat. The authors finally argue that rethinking urban architectural design under conditions of crisis must take into account people’s lived experiences of space, fear, and security.
Keywords: Spatial Anxiety, Urban Ethnography, Collective Memory, Lived Experience, Tehran.

Introduction
Any event that disturbs the mental image of the city in the collective imagination of Iranians can become the ground for the emergence of new meanings and experiences of urban life. From this perspective, people’s lived experiences of everyday spaces during wartime help us to understand the “architecture of anxiety” not as an architectural style or form but as a socio-sensory phenomenon. Within this architecture, space becomes a medium for fear, unease, intrusive memory, and insecurity. As will be discussed, historical and cultural memory intertwines earlier horizons of disaster with the present moment, intensifying spatial perception and emotional impact.
Historical precedents such as the mass departures during the Mongol and Ghalzai invasions of the thirteenth century—when cities like Rayy, Neyshabur, Tabriz, and Isfahan were abandoned—illustrate how leaving one’s home or birthplace became synonymous with the loss of safety and belonging. Similarly, the Tabriz earthquake of 1169 CE or the Rudbar earthquake of 1990 show how forced migration redefines the meaning of home and space (Hassanzadeh, 2015; Karimi & Hassanzadeh, 2021). More recent experiences of droughts and the formation of abandoned villages in Iran further demonstrate the spatial dimension of collective trauma (Banavand, 2006).
In the modern and contemporary history of Iran, the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988) remains a central reference point in the collective memory of war experience. Its echoes are still visible among post-war generations, especially under the shadow of new threats (Salimi, 2017a; 2017b). Memories of leaving home, bombardments, urban destruction, and the redefinition of domestic safety spaces persist in social consciousness. Likewise, during the COVID-19 pandemic, spatial perception underwent radical transformation, as fear and isolation reshaped everyday life (Hassanzadeh & Asadzadeh, 2021).
Thus, the interplay of long-term and short-term memories creates what may be called an “intrusive memory” that amplifies the sense of catastrophe, producing what we may term a “multiplied disaster” within the urban experience. This framework allows us to understand how the architecture of Tehran under threat becomes both a physical and emotional landscape—a city where anxiety itself takes spatial form.

Discussion 
The ethnographic findings of this study demonstrate how the recent wartime event profoundly transformed Tehran citizens’ lived experience and perception of space at psychological, embodied, symbolic, and social levels. The crisis reconfigured both private and public spatial meanings, destabilizing the affective geography of home and city. Similar to observations by Low (2017) and Lefebvre (1991), the participants’ accounts reveal that “space” became an extension of embodied fear. Homes—once sites of comfort—were reimagined as fragile and unsafe. Participants frequently relocated their sleeping areas away from windows, sharing rooms collectively as a form of emotional solidarity and corporeal protection. Physical symptoms of anxiety such as insomnia, chest pain, and headaches became somatic expressions of spatial insecurity.
A salient theme was the reactivation of collective and individual memories from earlier disasters, including the Iran–Iraq war, the Bam earthquake, and the COVID-19 pandemic. These intrusive memories, or intervening memories (Young, 1995; van der Kolk, 2014), re-emerged involuntarily through flashbacks, dreams, and bodily sensations. The phenomenon corresponds to Lefebvre’s notion of the “representation of memory in space,” where trauma transforms familiar spaces into mnemonic landscapes of loss. Individuals displaced during the 1980s war reported heightened anxiety, as domestic interiors evoked memories of bombardment and forced migration. This process reconstituted a “domestic architecture of grief,” where houses embodied vulnerability and recurrence of absence.
Dreams and compulsive behaviors also reflected the unconscious internalization of threat. Nightmares of collapse, separation, and burial under debris symbolized spatially situated fear. Compulsive phone calls to loved ones and restrictions on children’s movement revealed anxiety as a social and spatial phenomenon. As Hoffman (2002) notes in post-earthquake contexts, such fears reflect the “monstrous imagination of space” that emerges after catastrophe.
Moreover, citizens’ avoidance of public places—streets, cafés, and parks—signified a collapse of urban sociability and the emergence of “spatial nostalgia.” Participants expressed longing not only for familiar urban settings but also for national heritage sites such as Hafeziyeh, Pasargadae, and Ferdowsi’s tomb—symbolic spaces representing continuity and security (Goodman, 2009). These imagined returns to heritage sites suggest that cultural memory functions as a spatial refuge during crisis.
Comparative analysis with past Iranian disasters (Bam earthquake, Iran–Iraq war, and COVID-19) reveals overlapping experiential patterns: somatic anxiety, spatial displacement, and mnemonic intrusion. Across all cases, trauma reshaped the sensory order of space—its sounds, smells, textures, and rhythms. Following van der Kolk (2014), such embodied memories illustrate how trauma is not only remembered but also “lived” through the body and the materiality of space, linking collective suffering to the reconstruction of identity and belonging in post-crisis urban life.

Conclusion 
This ethnographic study has demonstrated that social and military crises—such as war, earthquakes, and pandemics—deeply shape people’s lived perception of space, memory, and temporality. Heightened sensory anxiety, intrusive memory, and the disruption of spatial and temporal order have collectively transformed everyday environments from familiar and secure settings into unstable and threatening landscapes. In the case of Tehran, these phenomena redefined the meanings of domestic and urban spaces: the home, the street, and other ordinary locations were no longer neutral or safe but became emotionally charged and symbolically fragile.
The closure of public and cultural institutions—such as museums, parks, and libraries—further intensified this sense of spatial deprivation. These places, which normally function as repositories of collective memory and identity, became inaccessible, leading to symbolic loss and a rupture in cultural continuity. This deprivation not only affected citizens’ sense of belonging but also weakened the shared emotional infrastructure of the city.
The findings suggest that in times of crisis, urban planning and architectural design should move beyond physical considerations to include affective, psychological, and mnemonic dimensions of spatial experience. Recognizing fear and insecurity as integral to spatial life under threat requires a new conceptual and practical approach to architecture—what this study terms the architecture of anxiety. This architecture is not solely about defensive design or material resistance; rather, it concerns the capacity of spaces to absorb, reflect, and heal collective emotional trauma.
To rebuild a sense of safety and identity after crises, architects and policymakers must engage deeply with the lived experiences of citizens, particularly their emotional geographies and memory-laden relationships with place. Designing for resilience, therefore, is not only about reconstructing infrastructure but also about reconstructing the sensorial and symbolic layers of space that sustain everyday life.
Ultimately, the study argues that crisis-driven urban transformation offers a rare ethnographic window into the intertwined dynamics of fear, memory, and belonging. It calls for a rethinking of how cities are conceptualized and lived during states of emergency. By centering the ethnographic voice of residents, this research contributes to a broader understanding of how urban anxiety becomes materialized in architecture and how the imagination of public and domestic spaces may foster collective recovery, cultural continuity, and the reconstitution of hope in post-crisis Tehran.