An Architecture of Dialogue: Learning from the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse

In 1987, the Boulder-Dushanbe Teahouse was gifted to the City of Boulder as an architectural monument to celebrate its sister-city relationship with Dushanbe, Tajikistan. This book tells the story of the Teahouse and its connection to place through student essays and architectural analyses. Environmental Design students at the University of Colorado Boulder crafted the essays for this volume as part of a design course in the fall of 2019 entitled "Restoring the Dushanbe Teahouse." The student essays reflect their experiences of restoring the artistic work found on the walls of the Teahouse and their consideration of the nature of monuments, culture, identity, nationalism, and regionalism as related to this architectural gem. The analyses explore the Teahouse's features through a Central Asian and Persian design lens using text, photographs, and diagrams of the building, highlighting its structural evolution over time. Through the conceptual discussions and architectural analyses found in the chapters, one can gain an understanding of the Teahouse's physical form and cultural legacy.