Tehran’s first independent contemporary art museum is housed in a more-than-100-year-old former brewery that had been abandoned for decades. The Iranian-Austrian architect’s aim was to create a dialogue between old and new by inserting a new foundation and metal structure to support floating concrete floors and roofs independently of the original exterior walls, thus allowing generous ceiling heights (up to 12 metres) for the climate-controlled galleries. All new insertions are curvilinear and employ distinct materials to differentiate them from the brick-built historic fabric: white concrete grand staircase; metal elevator; brass bar; strata of different-toned concrete cladding for the artist-in-residence tower. Restored brickwork is indicated by deeply recessed pointing. Echoing neighbouring vernacular roofs in form, the five new striated, pitched roof structures act as deep, insulating, filtering skylights and signal that the building is alive again: a symbolic "tip of the hat". Former basement brewing pools were converted into sunken galleries.