I doubt that a husband or business partner would sue his other half (being Iranian) for appearing on an Iranian magazine cover. If Alejandro really is so paranoid then divorce might be a rather good idea.
Its a shame to see them split, but they seem to have operated independently for quite a while. At least Alejandro has been promoting himself for years as independent, he ensured that the projects in Spain were always promoted just under his name as alejandro zaera, never mentioning Farshid or Foa.
Don't think it matters now anyway, they should both move on and open their own offices, its not a bad time to start a new business, good luck to them both. Hope they don't drag it out for themselves and the staff....
well, those actually say FOA... Those are interesting, but I don't know that you could blame her for doing something that might have been the prerogative of the editor.
If Alejandro thought of suing his wife because she appeared on the cover of a magazine than he needs a serious sanity check.
Sharestan is an iranian magazine that publishes iranian architects. Most of their issues are monograph style, that's what they do. And they normally put the person on the cover.
So, what's the point?
Sharestan is one of the few magazines in Iran that publish interesting architecture, why would you not allow them to run an issue on the work of FOA?
Especially when Alejandro is rather good at claiming things for himself, see spanish article from two days ago with the work credited to 'Studio Alejandro Zaera' as usual.....
Dear editor,
This thread does not make any sense any more, as you are systematically removing all the comments that criticise FM's sharestan monograph. So the ones that defend her are unintelligible too. Where is you impartiality?
We the editors of Sharestan are sorry to hear this news about FOA.
We have read the various comments on this site that have made reference to issue we published dedicated to the work of FOA.
To clarify any doubts, we are writing to declare that the editorial decisions of this issue were our entirely.
Given that Sharestan is an Iranian magazine, that is not distributed outside of Iran, and dedicated to the work of Iranian architects, we made the decision to foreground Ms. Moussavi. We have credited all the work published in the magazine to FOA and credited Mr. Zaera-Polo. These decisions were ours alone.
In reference to the issue we are preparing of the work o Office dA, Mr. Tehrani visits Iran frequently and we have had the benefit of working with him directly on his issue. However, when we were assembling the FOA issue, Ms. Moussavi had not been to Iran for 25 years, and she was not involved in the process of editing the FOA issue.
We stand by all of our editorial decisions, and we felt that is was important to post this note to clarify the confusion over this issue.
Good to hear from the editors of Sharestan! I am sorry to disagree with your editorial decisions, which may justify for Mr. Zaera-Polo to take you to court for copyright infringement. For the purpose of clarifying the facts, can you answer the following questions?
- Did Ms. Eduarda Lima, PR of FOA at the time of the monograph work with you in the monograph extensively? Why does she deserve the credit of Special Contributor?
- Were Ms. Eduarda Lima and Ms. Farshid Moussavi aware of the fact that the monograph was to be published in the name of Ms. Moussavi alone and with her picture on the cover?
- Did Mr. Zaera-Polo take legal action against you for copyright infringement? If he did, what was the outcome of it?
- Will Mr. Tehrani’s monograph have his picture on the cover too? Will it be published only with his name on the cover, or as Nader Tehrani/Office DA? Hasn’t he ensured that his partner has proper credit, despite that your collection is about Iranian architects?
Thank you for facing up to your decisions.
I would like to support capoeira's complain regarding the partiality of this forum. Only one side of the story seems to be allowed to express itself. For the benefit of the readers, I am posting again my message from yesterday, which seems to have been picked up by other bloggers. It would be good if the editors can return it to its original position for the public to be able to make sense of the replies.
I do not want to get into the discussion on whether there is a court process going on because I do not know anything about it, and I have not seen the monograph, but looking at those links I would like to make the following remarks:
1. That in the credits of the Sharestan monograph of Moussavi/FOA, there is a credit as a “Special Contributor” to Eduarda Lima, who I understand was the PR person at FOA when the monograph was made. So, either in the name of both partners or just in the name of one, the issue was edited by her to some degree...
2. That in those credits not even once appears the name of Alejandro Zaera.
3. That Bahram Shirdel and Mehrdad Hadighi are single practitioners. I wonder how the magazine will publish, for example, Office DA, where there is an Iranian partner and an American one… Will it be published as Nader Tehrani/Office DA, as Office DA only, or as Nader Tehrani/Monica Ponce de Leon? Will there be a picture of Nader Tehrani alone? I am pretty sure that Nader Tehrani will make sure is one of the last two, even without having one of his staff listed as “Special Contributor”. Yes, Sharestan should have published a monograph of FOA, not of Farshid Moussavi. Have you looked at the cover? This is not the prerogative of the editor; they can be sued for not quoting the authors properly. Or were they not told that the office had two partners?
4. If you could read some Spanish, below the headlines it explains that the office of Zaera is foreign office architects and that office is founded with Farshid Moussavi. We are not talking about a monograph but about a news piece by a newspaper, where there are no “special contributors” and no control over what the journalist says. Probably, Zaera is the partner in charge of the project, and it is likely that the journalist underline his name, as a Spaniard, but they do not ignore the other partner, even in a short note. Get someone to translate the Spanish to you!
I think this is the best way to say things that anyone can not say in real life and with some unreal names like Albero or capoeira.
- And if you are really are arc student I recommend you change your branch and study in lawyer beacause of you know spanish like Mr.Zaera.
- If I have a wife like FM I wrote you two some other stuffs that in fact this is not anyone business and I made a beautiful tabelaue from my wife picture in that magazine with honor, who care rest of the world.
- I look for Mr.Zaera write comment advocate his wife against such comments.
live with love
These comments are rather strange. Who is this Albero and this capoeira student that try to sound like lawyers?
I can;t quite figure out if they are out to tarnish his or her name.
I have trouble believing that he is actually suing his own wife, as they claim, for appearing on the cover of a magazine in her own country. it makes no sense. He's a top level architect, why would he do this? it make him look afraid or something.
They are both architects and intellectuals of the highest caliber. I would like to believe that this applies to both also as persons. I think this split is an enormous loss for the architecture world. Yet two new star firms have just been born and look forward to see what they will do individually. I'm sure they will both do very well.
I am humbled by the appreciation of my legal skills by the public. In order to make this thread understandable again I am reattaching a synthesis of my original messages, and some of the documents that have been referred to by other bloggers. If this could be located after the first comment, it would help to better understand the discussion.
The purpose of these posts was to speculate about the possible causes of the split:
Farshid Moussavi had been developing her own office for two or three years. She published a monograph on her own name in 2007, by Sharestan magazine, featuring the work of FOA, without a mention to her partner, and with a picture of herself on the cover which is larger than life. (see attached links) The rumor is that Alejandro Zaera-Polo sued her for copyright infringement, but I do not have any information of the outcome from my Iranian informants.
Cover of the Farshid Moussavi special issue and contents are provided by an earlier blog:
How can you call 'developing her own office' showing a magazine that has FOA written all over it?....just because her picture is on the cover doesn't mean it's uniquely her work. I see all the credits given to FOA. It's in Iran, of course they will want to feature her, same would go for Spanish magazines making his name more prominent.......if Mr Zaera has problems with this he must be very insecure indeed...maybe threatened?.....
Dec 21, 09 9:20 am ·
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14 Comments
what a pity, these guys set the bar for a long time.
I doubt that a husband or business partner would sue his other half (being Iranian) for appearing on an Iranian magazine cover. If Alejandro really is so paranoid then divorce might be a rather good idea.
Its a shame to see them split, but they seem to have operated independently for quite a while. At least Alejandro has been promoting himself for years as independent, he ensured that the projects in Spain were always promoted just under his name as alejandro zaera, never mentioning Farshid or Foa.
Don't think it matters now anyway, they should both move on and open their own offices, its not a bad time to start a new business, good luck to them both. Hope they don't drag it out for themselves and the staff....
Zaera preferred David Harvey, Moussavi was a faithful adherent to CW Mills.
what was that about work and pleasure?
well, those actually say FOA... Those are interesting, but I don't know that you could blame her for doing something that might have been the prerogative of the editor.
If Alejandro thought of suing his wife because she appeared on the cover of a magazine than he needs a serious sanity check.
Sharestan is an iranian magazine that publishes iranian architects. Most of their issues are monograph style, that's what they do. And they normally put the person on the cover.
Issue 15-16, Braham Shirdel:
http://www.sharestan.info/issue_15.html
Issue 17-18, Farshid Moussavi/FOA:
http://www.sharestan.info/issue_17.html
Issue 20-21, Mehrdad Hadighi:
http://www.sharestan.info/issue_21.html
So, what's the point?
Sharestan is one of the few magazines in Iran that publish interesting architecture, why would you not allow them to run an issue on the work of FOA?
Especially when Alejandro is rather good at claiming things for himself, see spanish article from two days ago with the work credited to 'Studio Alejandro Zaera' as usual.....
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2009/12/11/paisvasco/1260558600.html
Dear editor,
This thread does not make any sense any more, as you are systematically removing all the comments that criticise FM's sharestan monograph. So the ones that defend her are unintelligible too. Where is you impartiality?
We the editors of Sharestan are sorry to hear this news about FOA.
We have read the various comments on this site that have made reference to issue we published dedicated to the work of FOA.
To clarify any doubts, we are writing to declare that the editorial decisions of this issue were our entirely.
Given that Sharestan is an Iranian magazine, that is not distributed outside of Iran, and dedicated to the work of Iranian architects, we made the decision to foreground Ms. Moussavi. We have credited all the work published in the magazine to FOA and credited Mr. Zaera-Polo. These decisions were ours alone.
In reference to the issue we are preparing of the work o Office dA, Mr. Tehrani visits Iran frequently and we have had the benefit of working with him directly on his issue. However, when we were assembling the FOA issue, Ms. Moussavi had not been to Iran for 25 years, and she was not involved in the process of editing the FOA issue.
We stand by all of our editorial decisions, and we felt that is was important to post this note to clarify the confusion over this issue.
Good to hear from the editors of Sharestan! I am sorry to disagree with your editorial decisions, which may justify for Mr. Zaera-Polo to take you to court for copyright infringement. For the purpose of clarifying the facts, can you answer the following questions?
- Did Ms. Eduarda Lima, PR of FOA at the time of the monograph work with you in the monograph extensively? Why does she deserve the credit of Special Contributor?
- Were Ms. Eduarda Lima and Ms. Farshid Moussavi aware of the fact that the monograph was to be published in the name of Ms. Moussavi alone and with her picture on the cover?
- Did Mr. Zaera-Polo take legal action against you for copyright infringement? If he did, what was the outcome of it?
- Will Mr. Tehrani’s monograph have his picture on the cover too? Will it be published only with his name on the cover, or as Nader Tehrani/Office DA? Hasn’t he ensured that his partner has proper credit, despite that your collection is about Iranian architects?
Thank you for facing up to your decisions.
I would like to support capoeira's complain regarding the partiality of this forum. Only one side of the story seems to be allowed to express itself. For the benefit of the readers, I am posting again my message from yesterday, which seems to have been picked up by other bloggers. It would be good if the editors can return it to its original position for the public to be able to make sense of the replies.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I do not want to get into the discussion on whether there is a court process going on because I do not know anything about it, and I have not seen the monograph, but looking at those links I would like to make the following remarks:
1. That in the credits of the Sharestan monograph of Moussavi/FOA, there is a credit as a “Special Contributor” to Eduarda Lima, who I understand was the PR person at FOA when the monograph was made. So, either in the name of both partners or just in the name of one, the issue was edited by her to some degree...
2. That in those credits not even once appears the name of Alejandro Zaera.
3. That Bahram Shirdel and Mehrdad Hadighi are single practitioners. I wonder how the magazine will publish, for example, Office DA, where there is an Iranian partner and an American one… Will it be published as Nader Tehrani/Office DA, as Office DA only, or as Nader Tehrani/Monica Ponce de Leon? Will there be a picture of Nader Tehrani alone? I am pretty sure that Nader Tehrani will make sure is one of the last two, even without having one of his staff listed as “Special Contributor”. Yes, Sharestan should have published a monograph of FOA, not of Farshid Moussavi. Have you looked at the cover? This is not the prerogative of the editor; they can be sued for not quoting the authors properly. Or were they not told that the office had two partners?
4. If you could read some Spanish, below the headlines it explains that the office of Zaera is foreign office architects and that office is founded with Farshid Moussavi. We are not talking about a monograph but about a news piece by a newspaper, where there are no “special contributors” and no control over what the journalist says. Probably, Zaera is the partner in charge of the project, and it is likely that the journalist underline his name, as a Spaniard, but they do not ignore the other partner, even in a short note. Get someone to translate the Spanish to you!
I think this is the best way to say things that anyone can not say in real life and with some unreal names like Albero or capoeira.
- And if you are really are arc student I recommend you change your branch and study in lawyer beacause of you know spanish like Mr.Zaera.
- If I have a wife like FM I wrote you two some other stuffs that in fact this is not anyone business and I made a beautiful tabelaue from my wife picture in that magazine with honor, who care rest of the world.
- I look for Mr.Zaera write comment advocate his wife against such comments.
live with love
These comments are rather strange. Who is this Albero and this capoeira student that try to sound like lawyers?
I can;t quite figure out if they are out to tarnish his or her name.
I have trouble believing that he is actually suing his own wife, as they claim, for appearing on the cover of a magazine in her own country. it makes no sense. He's a top level architect, why would he do this? it make him look afraid or something.
They are both architects and intellectuals of the highest caliber. I would like to believe that this applies to both also as persons. I think this split is an enormous loss for the architecture world. Yet two new star firms have just been born and look forward to see what they will do individually. I'm sure they will both do very well.
I am humbled by the appreciation of my legal skills by the public. In order to make this thread understandable again I am reattaching a synthesis of my original messages, and some of the documents that have been referred to by other bloggers. If this could be located after the first comment, it would help to better understand the discussion.
The purpose of these posts was to speculate about the possible causes of the split:
Farshid Moussavi had been developing her own office for two or three years. She published a monograph on her own name in 2007, by Sharestan magazine, featuring the work of FOA, without a mention to her partner, and with a picture of herself on the cover which is larger than life. (see attached links) The rumor is that Alejandro Zaera-Polo sued her for copyright infringement, but I do not have any information of the outcome from my Iranian informants.
Cover of the Farshid Moussavi special issue and contents are provided by an earlier blog:
http://www.sharestan.info/issue_17.html
Credits demonstrating an implication of the press department of foa in Moussavi’s monograph (despite Sharestan disclaimer) are located here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45751215@N06/4197448138/
Hopefully Sharestan can clarify the implications as this seems to go beyond "partibazi". (iranian for favoritism)
The other rumor I heard is that Alejandro Zaera-Polo did like the ladies…
Hopefull this time there would be no censorship...
How can you call 'developing her own office' showing a magazine that has FOA written all over it?....just because her picture is on the cover doesn't mean it's uniquely her work. I see all the credits given to FOA. It's in Iran, of course they will want to feature her, same would go for Spanish magazines making his name more prominent.......if Mr Zaera has problems with this he must be very insecure indeed...maybe threatened?.....
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