[5] According to Shahbanu Farah, the idea for the museum originated in a conversation, at a gallery opening in the 1970s, where the artist Iran Darroudi mentioned her desire for a permanent place to exhibit works.

[6] The museum was designed by Iranian architect and cousin of the empress, Kamran Diba, who employed elements from traditional Persian architecture of Yazd, Kashan and other desert towns.

[6] Some people involved in the process of selecting art were the Americans, Donna Stein and David Galloway, and Kamran Diba, the architect and director of the museum, and Karimpasha Bahadori, who was the Chief of Staff of the cabinet.

[12] In 1977, Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi purchased expensive Western artwork in order to open the contemporary art museum.

A few art pieces did not survive the revolution including a public statue by Bahman Mohasses deemed un-Islamic and a 1977 Warhol painting, a portrait of the Shahbanu.

The show was to run for three months in Berlin, then travel to the Maxxi Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome for display from March through August.

[20] It can be considered kind of an acte de résistance on the part of the museum director at the time, since, with the advent of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elected president of Iran in 2005, a harsh conservative wind has, to this day, blown away the relative openness and pragmatism of the Rafsanjani and Khatami eras.