Translation theory in the analysis of the modern residential architecture in Turkey and Iran (1930s)

The translation is an inter-language ad inter-cultural activity, explaining and describing the world and its phenomena. Here, translation is a research area that studies the details of the cultural exchanges between the places and discusses the external and internal effects on a particular place. Translation in architecture is a research area that addresses and develops the words to understand modernization in terms of exchanges between various places, governments, and nations.  In other words, the current research does not intend to consider language as a comparable object with architecture but uses the literature translation as a metaphorical concept to construct the words of this discourse through linguistics. The linguistics theories provide a discourse space that leads to understanding the nature of translation and intercultural exchanges as an extensive phenomenon.

The current study has used translation as an interpretive method in cultural discourses. Then, the definitions used in the specialized texts and the search related to the translation concept were reviewed in the linguistics and non-linguistic texts. Finally, in the theoretical foundation of the research, the considered definitions of the authors related to the translation in architecture were concluded. In the case study section, 40 samples of the residential architecture in Iran and Turkey, the translation methods in the residential architectures of Iran and Turkey were analyzed. Then, the analyses related to the translation methods in the residential architecture of these countries were studied. Finally, the definition of the translation in the construction of a new tradition in the residential architecture of the 1930s in Turkey and Iran was developed. The method used in the first section of this research was the research review, which is the subset of the meta-analysis review of the research. In the second section, the qualitative research method and content analysis were used to identify the translation methods in the residential architecture of Iran and Turkey.

Despite the lack of theories on translation in architecture, translation is a part of the architectural design process. The translation in architecture can be raised in relation to the transformation of the plan to the building, from a diagram to the project, from a place to another, from different areas of architecture, and from text to the image. It is necessary that the concept of the translation is distinguished from the concepts such as transportation and transformation, that at first glance, these concepts might be very similar. However, the terms, such as transportation, exports/imports, or circulation, have the implication on the movement from a place to another so that they are not necessarily subject to the change during this process. Although the transformation is the embodied idea of the change, this change does not necessarily require transportation, but it can cause the transformation at the time and without changing the place. Here, translation means understanding the transformations during the transportation process.

In general, the mainstreams of the residential architecture of the first Pahlavi era in Iran and Turkey can be explained as follows: first, continuing the housing of the late Ottoman period in Turkey and Qajar period in Iran; second, the integration of the traditional architecture into European housing; third, the modern housing. Investigation of the abovementioned ideas shows that two concepts play a significant role in the formation of the new architecture in this period: restoration of the tradition and construction of a new tradition that cut the relationship with the legacy of the past architecture.  The concept of restoring the past traditions in the architecture can be discussed in two ways in the residential architecture as follows:  one emphasizes the role of the vernacular architecture in the formation of the new architecture (The housing of the late Ottoman/Qajar periods) while the other emphasizes the classic architecture of the Ottoman/Qajar periods or New-Islamic architecture (Eclectic housing). These different approaches looked for the restoration of the past traditions in the architecture and tried to prove the power of the past architecture of these countries in the formation of modern architecture. The second concept, the construction of a new tradition in architecture, focused on ideas such as realism, truth, and freedom of architecture. The modern Turkish and Iranian architects both emphasized the purity and clarity of the past architecture and the simple and non-ornamental lines in modern architecture. In the late 1930s, the approach of developing a new tradition in residential architecture was based on the translation theory of modernism in the west through methods, such as spatial assimilation, adaptation to the urban fabric, and alienation in the urban environment. Based on the cultural context and the degree of change, it directs the residential architecture of this period towards homogeneity under a hegemonic power or introduces a new and strange idea to a cultural context, resulting in maintaining the local norms if it wants to adopt the included and new subjects.