A Critique of Engineering Discourse Intervention in Historical Kurit Dam, Tabas, Iran (Development of Engineering Discourse Approach to the Historical Building)

This research concerns how engineering discourse deals with the historical buildings. To clarify the subject, a case study has been analysed that was followed by a lot of discussions A project to increase the exploitation of the Kurit River in Tabas1. The present research seeks a more accurate reading of how the engineering practice deals with historical buildings, though inquiring how engineering discourse reacted to this historical dam and what its reasons were. Such an approach have not been addressed in previous research, as neither conservation nor particularly engineering discourses have considered the decision-making process and its outcomes and failures. This main questions of the present study are whether these failures are caused by personal or organizational mistakes or can be tracked in dominant principals of the engineering method in dealing with the concept of conservation; and how such failures could be diminished by redefining some principals. The present study is carried out based on the historical discourse analysis by Ruth Wodak2, and using case study, i.e. the engineering discourse interventions in the historical Kurit dam are analysed and discussed in details. This research aims to propose a model for the engineering discourse to deal with the historical structures, on the basis of recognizing the problem-solving process in this discourse and it also tries to modify this process by entering the concept of heritage value related to various aspects of a historical building, which is in the conservation discourse, in engineering discourse. Through such a regard, the decision-making process in the engineering discourse will be modified in a way that its outcomes can preserve the values and different aspects of authenticity of buildings