[2][3][4] Ardalan has had a significant impact on contemporary architecture in Iran, the Middle East, and North America as an architect, researcher, and theoretician.

[1][2] He is most identified with designing the Iran Centre for Management Studies in Tehran, the Azadi Stadium, and the Souq Sharq in Kuwait City,[2] and with the co-authorship of the influential[5] book The Sense of Unity.

[2] His father was a member of the Ardalan clan of Iranian Kurdistan, and his mother was the daughter of noted jurist Ali Akbar Davar.

[5][1][2] Ardalan’s master’s program was directed by Catalan architect and former CIAM President, Jose Luis Sert, a close associate of Le Corbusier.

[2][5] NIOC had commenced a recruitment process to bring back to Iran professionally-trained Iranians from western countries to take over certain duties formally in the hands of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

[6][7] In 1966, Ardalan joined Abdul Aziz Farmanfarmaian in Tehran,[2][5] where he designed the Saman Center, the first twin tower, 25-story prefabricated concrete residential apartments of Iran.

[2][5] During this time he worked with Ian McHarg on the masterplan for Pardisan Park and Mahshahr New Town, with Georges Candilis on the Bu Ali Sina University in Hamadan, and for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran on the master plan for a sustainable city of 100,000 people to be built outside Isfahan.

[2] Ardalan co-authored with Laleh Bakhtiar the book The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Architecture, published by the University of Chicago Press, in 1973.

Selected portions of the resulting research documents were incorporated into the 1973 book The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture, published by University of Chicago Press.