Sa’dabad Complex know as Kakh-e Saad is a 300 hectare complex built by the Qajar and Pahlavi monarchs, located in Shemiran, Greater Tehran, Iran. This site reminds how the late Mohammed Reza Shah (d1980) removed himself from the everyday life of Tehran. Today, of course, residential housing has spread on to this previously isolated hillside.
If you do not have time to visit all the museums, do find time for the Mellat Palace (‘White Palace’) with a pair of giant bronze boots — all that remains of a huge statue of Reza Shah (d1941) — standing by the side of the steps.
It was said that the army life so conditioned Reza Shah that he preferred sleeping on the floor rather than in a bed, and certainly this house does not feel lived in. During Nou Rouz outside the palace there are concerts and a small local market with a traditional tea house. Further up the hill from Mellat Palace is another must-see museum.
The Green Palace is so called because it is faced with a distinctive special greenish-yellow marble, which reminded one visitor of 1950s Fablon plastic coverings. Reza Shah ordered this construction in 1925 and certainly his small office has a more personal ambience than the Mellat. Elsewhere the excess Of mirror-work, blue brocade silk curtains with silver metal thread fringes, tassels in the bedrooms and the crimson silk dining rooms speak more of the excesses of his son, Mohammed Reza.
Sadabad Complex built by the Qajar and Pahlavi monarchs, located in Shemiran, Greater Tehran, Iran.
