Three Roons, Six Orientations, Seven Climates: Investigating History of Roon Concept

“Roon”, pronounced “ruːn” is a system of architectural orientation used in Iran introduced to modern literature by Mohammad Karim Pirnia. After reviewing what he had mentioned about it, we will try to find its traces in historic texts and see if they confirm exitence of such a system in Iranian architecture of the past. Medical, geographical, and astronomical texts have been the better candidates for such a search. Medical texts were selected due to the benefits mentioned for the Roon, and geographical and astronomical texts, due to their connection to the problem of orientation. Results show that Roon has a long history and could be traced to at least Avesta. It probably had a religious aspect primarily. But in later periods it was perceived as a system for matching architecture with regional weather. Between these two points, several conceptual layers could be seen in Roon, these layers were probably added to the first concept in Islamic period, so its meaning for architects have changed.