An Evaluation of environmental aesthetics perception in the transition from traditional to modern society with an emphasis on identity crisis in contemporary city

The transformations and developments in the field of art and the variations in definitions of art since the beginings of twentieth century have had a significant impact on the aesthetic views of modern human beings. But which fundamental changes in aesthetic approach are at the roots of the transition from past traditional society to today's modern society? The present study, using an analytical-comparative method based on documentary and library information with a sociological approach and the analysis of the creation process and the transition of art from traditional society to modern society, aims to identify the relative causes of the decline of arts in present aesthetics and the reduction of longevity of contemporary art experience especially in architecture. The findings of the study indicate that aesthetics in arts including Iranian art, has gradually departed from the qualitative symbolic and conceptual aesthetics and tends towards a formal aesthetics with individualistic character which lacks referential concepts and has a more superficial perception which consequently leads to a shorter lifetime.