Siah armajani biography sampler

Siah Armajani (b. 1939, Tehran; died in 2020,Minneapolis  ) moved to the United States from Iran in 1960. He attended Macalester College, in Minnesota, where he studied philosophy.

His sculptures, drawings and public works exist between the boundaries of art and architecture, informed by democratic and populist ideals.Armajani is recognized as a leading figure in the conceptualization of the role and function of public art, with nearly one hundred projects realized internationally since the 1960s.

The artist’s education in Western thought and philosophy began in Tehran, where he attended a Presbyterian school for Iranian students, and continued through his undergraduate years in the US.

Early theoretical interests continue to influence his work, taking form in objects and architectural spaces designed in homage to literary, philosophical and political figures like Martin Heidegger, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodor Adorno, Ahmad Shamlou and Alfred Whitehead.

American vernacular archite