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These houses which are designated for Senior European personnel were based on the 'bungalow' prototype which were set on large green lawns. They are typically surrounded by parks and gardens and each house was lined with English hedges. Unlike the…

Students of the 7th and 8th grades in the Overseas Schools in Abadan in the basketball. This mode of segregated [local vs. foreigners] schools became the accepted norm of schooling in the 'company towns'. Like their parents who were segregated,…

The locals in Abadan Bazaar Street in front of the row houses that were occupied with workers.

The city of Bawarda was designed by James M. Wilson in 1926 and was inspired by Lutyens’s remodelling of the Garden City and City Beautiful ideas in New Delhi (1911–1940). Bawarda was an attempt at social and ethnic mixing and also offered larger…

"‘Since the War’, Wilson reported, ‘a very great and widespread spirit of Nationalism has been introduced and fostered throughout the Middle East. . . Though the Company probably incurs less of this [jealousy] than the
political services do…

A quick look at the people in key positions of oil companies in the Middle East from the late 1800s to the early 1970s results in the same image across the board: white, middle-aged, Anglo-Saxon. While the initiatives of many of these oil companies…

The houses in Braim were based on the Garden City ideal and the planner of the city, James M. Wilson. The are of Braim was also known as the 'bungalow area' and housed the British personnel and was located south-west of the refinery area. It was also…

The houses in Braim were designed to house workers and aimed to appease the 'local' architecture and needs. These houses were much smaller than the ones in Bawarda and Braim, which housed 'foreigners'. The houses were designed as a series of row…

This image depicts the reality in the 'company town' of Abadan in which the British, and the foreigners in general, were above the locals in the social hierarchy. Iranians did not receive the benefits of the new found oil wealth, but were instead in…