Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art

The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art stands beside Laleh Park in a low circular building whose rooftop light-scoops recall the wind towers of desert architecture. Opened in the late 1970s, it holds one of the most significant collections of modern Western art outside Europe and North America, alongside major works by Iranian artists. A spiralling ramp leads visitors down through galleries arranged around a sunken sculpture garden. Its paintings by leading twentieth-century figures are shown in rotation over time.