Within the framework of urban cultural studies, I show how acts and processes of alienation and disalienation - in the Lefebvrian sense - are expressed through the 1922 novel 'Tehrân-e Makhuf' by Moshfeq Kazemi, thus exploring the dialectical relationship between material conditions and cultural imaginaries at a critical juncture of Tehran’s urban history specifically, and of Iran’s socio-political history generally.