Changing View of the Profession of Architecture of Iran towards Technology after the Islamic Revolution (1357-1389): A Survey of Specialist Journals

Islamic revolution with its ideals about independence from foreign forces brought a critical experience about for the professional body of building design to show their qualities in this field especially about building technology which has been of the main concern in modern era. But it is questionable if those ideals have enough roots in visions of the members of architectural society of Iran and what has happened to their views towards the matter in recent three decades. Based on professional journals of building and design industry، this article proposes a historical analysis of directions and views taken in this respect. It is a documentary research that aims to introduce causes of change in ideological change in the matter of technology among architects that is presented in five conceptual periods: 1. Technology for life which deals with first two years after revolution when no kind of technology import was possible or even desirable for revolutionist society; 2. Technology for survival which refers to days of imposed war when there was no priority unless being alive with minimum facilities; 3. Technology for production is the title chosen for short period after war during which main concern was reconstruction of demolished areas and housing for refugees of war; 4. Technology for consumption is the first time of theoretical conflict for architectural society of a revolutionist country; while the profession along with upper classes tend to consumerist technology the mass of society needs some low-tech productive one; since the architectural society chooses to work for the sake of upper classes، it is world currents that guide its visions not local realities، so the next two periods are some alienated trends from real needs of the nation- i. e. 5. Technology for technology &6. Technology for Power that refers to a coincidence of governmental approach and world changes of architectural technology. The main result of the analysis is that rootedness of architecture in renaissance custom of detachment of architect from society makes it very difficult to have a building professional body which takes needs as well as ideals of the people as its main concern and always tends to return to its consumerist mode of thought.