The chemical engineer who captured the vanishing artistry of 1963 Iran
In short: Through the lens of an RCA pioneer, we witness a world of meticulous hand-crafted beauty. From the intricate glass mosaics of Shiraz to the dense weaves of Nain, these archival films preserve the delicate rhythms of ancient Iranian craftsmanship before the modern era took hold.
The footage is part of the Watson Kintner Collection at the Penn Museum, documenting a journey through Iran in the spring of 1963. Kintner, a chemical engineer for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) active between 1890 and 1979, was a significant figure in the history of technology, specifically known for his early work in the standardization of the vacuum tube. His travels, which began in 1933 and spanned over 30 countries during a 36-year career, provided a rare, unedited window into the daily lives and traditional industries of the region.
The films from April and May 1963 reveal a landscape defined by manual precision and ancestral techniques. In Shiraz, between April 18 and 19, the reels capture the painstaking process of creating glass mosaics, involving the use of charcoal fires to melt glue and the hand-sanding of tiles. The footage also documents the spiritual and artistic heritage of the area, showing illuminated books in glass cases and 800-year-old fireplace mantles. Elsewhere, the artistry extends to textiles, such as the incredibly dense carpet weaving found in Nain, where weavers achieved a complexity of 100 knots per square centimeter.
Beyond the workshops, Kintner’s lens moves through the broader Iranian geography, from the gold domes of the Imam Reza shrine in Gonabad to the nomadic migrations of the Bakhtiari people near the Karoon river. We see the movement of sheep, goats, and donkeys along roads, and the quiet labor of women spinning wool by hand. These records serve as more than mere travelogues; they are a technical and cultural archive of a moment in time when the heavy labor of the hand and the ancient patterns of the loom remained central to the Iranian identity.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Iran 1963 Reel 14 of 25
- Also: Iran from the Watson Kintner Collection - Penn Museum
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