Rethinking in the connection between school and city according to school sociability analysis in Timurid era till early fourteenth century in Iran

The following article is a result of a field and librarian study in recognition of the connection between school and city in Iranian Islamic architecture and tries to find the different forms of these connections by analyzing physical characteristics of schools’ space and finding their source. Decreasing of targeted engagement of students and people in modern schools in one hand, and the similarity between modern education and Iranian classical foundations about the role of social relations in education on other hand have caused this approaches and contemplation in the architecture from this view is a great step toward reviviscence of engaging joint of school and city. Thus, more than twelve structures from reputed eras of Timurid, Safavid and Qajar were chosen. Then by studying the situation of the country in the specific era, presence or absence and the location of a collective space for students and people in schools were studied. In this article which is applied and developmental, comparisons show that in the schools of that eras of Iran there were a view of connecting to city and foundation of this connection was considered. Thus, dissimilar incorporation of social space with school shows that there is not a uniform approach to all of engagements. It seems that the base of such difference should be discovered in the difference of the policies of each government. Accommodation of analysis shows three general interpretations from meaning of connection. It is best to arrange and analyze different connection qualities to clearly understand these interpretations. In this way, different kinds of educational space combination with social space in each era is explained. In schools’ structure of powerful and Sunni Timurid, social space is in median of city’s public domain and school’s private domain, in a way that separation of students’ territory from people is clearly observable. After that and with the rise of Shiite and influential government of Safavid’s schools became the place of thought exchange and improvement of national unity. In this era, while maintaining visual connection, presence of common relative spaces between social space and school increased. On the other hand, In Qajar era, the government which is afraid of riots, shows no tendency toward making a connection between scholars and students with people and budget allotment for school management is not an agendum. Thus, although there is a public control in school, connection to city becomes less clear and the connection between people and school degrades from thought exchange to an economical connection. Schools which are beside mosques (social space) are built but they act different in some parts even in entrance. This separation shows itself in the yards and other spaces too. It can be concluded from analysis that knowing the socialization of schools plays a key role in explaining the position of this space in each era and it seems assuming that “although schools’ structure of traditional Islamic eras of Iran were affected by their performance, they consequently reflect beliefs of rulers” is defendable.