distinction

 The concept of taste’ is one of the prominent concepts in art and architecture. This concept is widely used in various fields, such as interior architecture: from deciding on the quality and overall quality of the interior space to determining the materials of the place, choosing furniture and arranging the elements of the interior space, we can trace the presence of ‘taste decision’. On the one hand, it seems like a simple and obvious concept that is present in our daily product selection experience. On the other hand, due to its complexities and dependence on various factors, it seems that it is necessary to pay attention on this complex and complicated issue; With this question, ‘what meaning(s) of taste can be found in art and architecture-interior architecture? The purpose of this research is to understand the different semantic layers of taste to clarify its meaning and provide a way to enter into the discussion about it. For this purpose, the research started with the linguistic study of taste. Then, the origin of taste since it penetrated into art and architecture and the changes and transformations it has undergone until now, were explored. In other words, the way and process of the transformation of the concept of taste from long ago to the present day was followed in order to recognize different explanations and interpretations. So, this research is focused on reviewing the background of the concept of taste from the beginning of searchable moments to the fields of art and architecture-internal architecture; The three main fields of philosophy, social sciences, and psychological sciences provide the possibility of knowing the different layers of the concept of taste so that different dimensions and contexts can be explained. Studies show that almost two important milestones can be identified in the genealogy of taste in art and architecture: first, it is the moment of its emergence in the field of art and architecture, which is used instead of the word ‘judgment’. In this era, the concept of taste created a great change in understanding of subject-object relationship. The second one is the moment of its entry into the field of social sciences. This time, the concept of taste had become a means to understand consumer behavior. From the sum of these studies, it seems that five general concepts are hidden in different semantical layers of taste: beauty, distinction, lifestyle, fashion, and preference. Each of these layers, while being continuous, has a specific meaning range in a specific field; And they show us a certain aspect of taste, which will be briefly mentioned here. The concept of beauty is more theoretical and philosophical. In the philosophical discussions of taste, these two terms are mostly together. The other four terms are related to when taste comes together with choice and emerges. The concepts of distinction, lifestyle, and fashion have more social meaning and each of them shows how social conditions and status can affect taste. And finally, it should be said that when we use preference, the goal is mostly to understand the internal conditions and activities and developments in the brain.

The purpose of this article is to examine different cultural factors which are necessary for African Americans to form their own culture and identity against the dominant white class of society in the beginning of the twentieth century in America, as presented in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s come and Gone, and to provide a cultural analysis of this play in the light of the objective and systematic theory of Pierre Bourdieu. The American playwright August Wilson (1945–2005) produced a series of ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes. One of the basic issues which Wilson brings up in his ten plays, written in regard to each decade of the twentieth century, is the struggle of African Americans to construct their culture and consequently their identity in America. In Wilson’s plays, many newly freed African slaves move to the north in order to shape their identity as respectable citizens of great worth. Therefore, they are foreigners in a new and strange habitus, and because they have lost their contact with their past heritage and also do not have access to the social codes through which they could gain power, they search for means through which they could concretize the song they carry within themselves which is their true African heritage. And in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Wilson portrays the socio-historical and economic forces that led to the great migration of African Americans from the South to the North, reminiscent of the biblical exodus of the migration of Israelites. He depicts men and women who try to break themselves form the invisibles chains of slavery and cruelty and search for a new life, prosperity, empowerment, safety, individuality, and of course eventually their collective racial identity). And this play is surveyed in the light of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory. Influenced by great thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Jean Baudrillard among others, Bourdieu’s main concern is with the changing pattern of cultural forms of domination, competition for power and prestige with the aim of revealing and bringing to light the hidden forms of domination that are consciously and unconsciously reproduced in everyday life. Though the subject of Bourdieu’s studies is basically the French society of his time, his methodology and insights are applicable to all societies which are the domains of cultural conflicts. The key terms in Bourdieu’s theory such as culture, different forms of capital, taste, distinction, and habitus provide the ground through which we can diagnose the surface and hidden conflicts in social relations. One of the main advantages of Bourdieu as a social theorist is that he does not exclude the role of history in his studies. It is, finally, argued that without capturing different forms of capital and growing individual tastes and consequently real distinction within a specific habitus, the struggle of these people for structuring their social identity is futile. The significance of the current article is that its discoveries can be extended for the analysis of other dominated cultures throughout the world as well.

Recognition of architectural works is considered a difficult task due to its complexity and expansion. Categorizations and classifications can be regarded in recognizing the architectural works, by considering the similarities between them to facilitate the recognition of architectural works by generalizing the characteristics of similar cases. But on the other hand, despite the similarities, the architectural works are not exactly the same. Each construction is entirely exclusive, having its own features and identity. It happens because specific aspects and characteristics of buildings are affected by several factors such as climate, style, culture, material, shape and color, methods, authorities, beliefs, tradition, function, etc. these factors cause every building have special aspects and its own features and identity. Thus, in recognizing the architectural works, we are faced on the one hand with the similarities of the works and on the other hand with their distinctions with each other.

Therefore, the questions arise as to what the nature of "similarity" and "distinction" and what the relation between them is, and what aspect is more original in recognizing the architectural works. The main purpose of this study is approaching to a comprehensive recognition of architectural works based on their similarities or differences.

The transcendental realm of architecture, i.e. the rational sciences that deal with the cognition of the universe in general has been used to explain the answer, since the considered questions are fundamental. So Islamic philosophical knowledge has been used and referred.

To answer the research question, some dualities are extracted. The resulsts showed that the dualities such as General and Partial, Being and Nature, Substance and Accident, Unity and Plurality, Appearance and hidden, Transcendence and Immanence are opposite and also related to each other. One side of these dualities which are discussed is more intelligible and the other side is more sensible. The first one leads to similarities and the second leads to distinctions. In these dualities the two sides are always together and study based on just one side is defective and causes defective recognition and results. Their relationship can be generalized by the deductive reasoning method and generalize to the two concepts of "similarity" and "distinction" in the phenomena, including the architectural works. The present study is "theoretical fundamental" in terms of purpose, while it has an analytical-philosophical nature in terms of nature and method. Finally, it will be proved that similarity and distinction are two features of works that are counteracting while complementary at the same time, and both aspects must be considered simultaneously in recognizing architectural works, since each of these aspects, on their own, provide an incomplete and reciprocal image from the reality. However, the aspect of similarity has more domination and originality, and the distinction that is maximized in the materialistic emergence of the works is considered as one of its subordinates.