The Role of Interior Design in Preservation the Latent Values in a Historical Building A Critical Survey into the Revitalization of Music Museum, Moghadam Museum and Saba Museum

Today it is generally accepted that any outstanding architectural work is a constitutive moment of cultural heritage. The worth of a built architectural work depends on several facts such as time, place, life style, techniques and current temporal architectural paradigms. Through passing the time, the building may be let useless and in the danger to be destroyed and even annihilated. Therefore it needs to be updated and revitalized. Since the revitalization of a historical building changes in its inside causes, the basic problem in this field is that of the interior design and its relation to the architecture. It must be interrogated: What is the function of the interior design concerning the revitalization of the historical building? How should it be performed in order to preserve historical values of the buildings? Through experiences and approaches in the interior design, the inquiry attempts to study carefully three cases of revitalized and into museum converted residential houses. The first one is Music Museum that is established in a house from second-Pahlavi period with the intention of exhibit and introduces Iranian music. The second one is Moghadam Museum, which is established in Dr. Mohsen Moghadam’s family house from Ghajar’s period. This museum is the first academic museum in Iran and contains a precious collection of art works and archeologically discoveries. And the last case study is Saba museum which is established in a house of the late master of Persian music: AbolhassanSaba (1902-1957). Saba Museum is the first Iranian biographical museum. Through comparison these three museums it is attempted to introduce the methods of the interior design in performing the revitalization of an old building, and discuss its place and importance. Each case study is divided into two sections. The first section gives a brief account of the changes until the present state, and describes the present situation as well as the architectural and interior design characteristics. From the life–style view-point the second section analyses the inside structure and quality and finally compares the old form of the interior space with the new one. When it comes to revitalizinga historical building, there is no general criterion. Each interior design project brings withit a unique combination of challenges, problems, strengths and weaknesses, which have possibly never seen before. On historic buildings, how much of the old should be conserved? How far should the renovation either imitate or diverge from the original? What sort of new technologies and materials are compatible with old structures and finishes? These are just some of the questions, which inevitably arise in revitalizing. The comparison of three case studies shows that in confrontation to the historical buildings, the interior designers have several approaches according to their view point concerning the preservation and presentation the building’s values. Dealing with the converting a house into a museum two important matters must be kept in mind: the presentation of the values contained in the historical building and the presentation of the precious collection of things, which must be placed in the museum.