Gholamreza Pasban Hazrat was born in 1944 in Mashhad. He completed his primary education at Makarem and Hedayat schools in the Eidgah neighborhood, and attended Mostofi Evening High School in Mashhad on a part-time basis. Before entering university, and concurrently with his high school studies, he worked for eight years (1957–1965) as an accountant in two trading companies in Mashhad.
In 1965, he entered the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran and graduated in 1972. His professional career began in 1965 while studying at the Faculty of Architecture, and continued from that year with work on the diploma project of Architect Hossein Amanat and then with other diploma projects of the students (six projects).
He also worked under the supervision of the late Engineer Manouchehr Iranpour on the Zoroastrian Students’ Dormitory project, and at Engineer Amanat’s office on the residential–commercial developments in Daryakenar, the residence of the late Dr. Mojtahedi, two buildings at Sharif University, and Tehran’s Azadi Square, collaborating alongside Engineer Rouhollah Nik-Khesal. In 1969, he joined the Technical Office of the newly established Ministry of Agricultural Production and Consumer Goods, where he designed administrative buildings and supervised the construction of the Ministry’s pier in Mahshahr.
In 1972, together with former university classmate Ruhollah Nik-Khesal, he founded the “UP” Consulting Engineers firm. The firm’s projects included the design of a hotel in northern Iran, several villas and apartment buildings, camps for displaced Iraqi Kurds affected by the war, the refurbishment of the Khashayar branch of Bank Melli Iran, the Negarestan Museum, the Marble Palace Museum, and Jamshidieh Garden in Tehran.
In 1979, together with several university colleagues, including architects Abolghasem Haddad Kaveh and Jalil Divanbeigi, he founded Baft Shahr Consulting. In its early years, the firm conducted studies and developed prototype plans for reconstruction and renewal in earthquake-affected areas, designed and supervised camps for people displaced by the war in Khuzestan, and prepared housing designs for earthquake survivors in Golbaf, Kerman. These activities were carried out voluntarily and through direct fieldwork. In 1981, Baft Shahr Consulting continued its activities with the addition of new partners and experts, adapting to the new regulations of the Plan and Budget Organization.
He served as the managing director of Baft-e-Shahr for over three decades, across two separate terms. Over more than forty years of leadership, research, and design work within the firm, he directed and coordinated seven major groups of projects in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and urban-environmental design. His body of work can be classified into several key categories:
1. Residential – 29 Projects
2. Public Complexes & Buildings – 66 Projects
3. Urban Paradises – 15 Projects
4. Public Gardens (Parks) – 17 Projects
5. Urban Landscape Architecture – 14 Projects
6. Urban–Environmental Design – 38 Projects
7. Special Projects – 15 Projects
Among these, he placed particular emphasis on urban paradises (interconnected gardens) for their capacity to create vibrant and natural spaces for citizens; public gardens for facilitating people’s interaction with nature; and urban–environmental design for its active stewardship, ecological restoration, and sustainable integration of human life with natural urban environments.
He has published three books:
Reconstruction and Renewal of War-Damaged Areas
(limited print, 1979)Designing in Nature
(focused on Ferdowsi Garden and Jamshidieh Park, 2009)Designing Urban Paradises
(focused on Kuhsangi Paradise, 2012)
