Romanticism in Iranian Contemporary Architecture

Romantic Movement is one of the most important movements of the early 19th century in European art and architecture. It had a definite impact on the formation of the architecture of the 19th century and the architecture of the modern era in Europe. This movement came to Iran by intellectuals، western (such as Godard) and Iranian architecture، who had studied in European universities، in late Qajar and early Pahlavi era. The observation of some of the contemporary architectural works in Iran،which have evidently been under the influence of some of the stylistic tendencies of this movement، shows the entry of this western artistic movement into theIranian contemporary architecture in Pahlavi period. But there are a few researches about the start and influences of this movement and its impacts on Iranian contemporary architecture. Generally in these few studies، two deficiencies are quite sensible. First، none of them could explain that based on what evidences the style of a building is romantic? And also howdo we could predicate the Romanticism to the style of a building? And Second Most of these researches have studied the buildings which were made on first Pahlavi period whereas there are also manyexamples of this style onsecond Pahlavi era which have not been much discussion about them. Therefore this research first tries to answer this question that why we tell Romantic to the style of a building? And then tries to come close to a new stylistics of this western architectural movement in Iranian contemporary architecture with the help of comparative analysis of the Romantic architectural tendencies and it is social contexts in the west and a logical comparison of them in Iran. Also in the pursuit of this objective، this research will probe the possibility of classification of different branch of this style in the Iranian contemporary architecture with emphasizing to second Pahlavi era. In order to gain the objectives of this research، we will at first study and critique the opinions of the critics in recognition of the style and stylistic specifications of Romanticism inthe backdrop of its formation and then we will classify different branch of this movement in the Iranian contemporary architecture by reviewing the examples of architecture influenced by this movement in Iran. At the end، this research will show that Iranian Romanticism is not exactly such as European Romanticism. It is only similar to that movement in some important contents. It also will show that there are three important sub-category of Romantic Movement in the architecture of the second Pahlaviera in Iranian contemporary architecture. These three sub-categories are respectively: vernacular architecture، traditionalism and historicism. Although these three sub- categories have a little difference in the stylistic analyses but they can be considered parts of the Romantic vast movement because all of them with taking advantages of the properties and values ​​of Iranian vernacular and local architecture have resisted against the spread and absolute acceptance of modern architecture in Iranian contemporary architecture.