The Influence of "Culture from Rappaport's Viewpoint" on "Mental Image" and Examining the Role of this Influence on the Formation of the Environment

Built environments in any region have unique features reflecting the specific culture of that region because environments are formed based on people's mental patterns and these mental patterns are formed in people's minds according to their culture. People's mental images have been formed due to certain factors over time, and have played a significant role in creating sensory and emotional relationships and correct actions and reactions between people and their living environment. Therefore, studying the relationship between culture and architecture requires the investigation of people's mental images influencing the built environment, and the examination of cultural components and how they relate to the mental image. The present study is fundamental qualitative research carried out descriptively and analytically. Using documentary and library studies, the present study examines how clear mental images are formed in people's minds based on the cultural components extracted from Amos Rapaport's viewpoint to relate the two concepts of culture and mental image to show how they influence the built environment, what their important role is in the formation of built environments, and how the interaction between them and built environments is. Also, after extracting the components from Rappaport's viewpoint, for each of the components, according to their classification, two examples of Iranian architecture are selected and analyzed in the form of tables. The results show that culture from Rapaport's viewpoint influences the mental images created in people's minds. Moreover, the examples presented for cultural components indicate that lifestyle (environment-behavior interactions), social relations (caused by culture and mental patterns), customs (as a result of the repetition of behaviors), and opinions and beliefs (created over time) can be part of physical and perceptual-psychological factors of mental images and people form their environments based on these mental images. Therefore, the mental images formed in people's minds are effective in the formation of the environment.