Interpretation of the Archetypal theme of Persona and Shadow in the Traditional Houses of the Qajar era in the Central Plateau of Iran

Research Problem:

 At present, the treasure of our traditional arts is being forgotten. Unfortunately, Iranian traditional architecture, as a repository of immortal and influential memories on our Cultural structure, social innate values and beliefs, is no exception. In such circumstances, it is necessary to address the issue of psyche and mental function and explore its role in the permanence of art. It is obvious that the manifestation of the psyche in art and other original human creations happens through symbols. Among the versified symbols, in the human sciences and art, archetypal allegories are attributed to the modern critical literature and Swiss psychologist- and the founder of psychoanalytical method- Carl Gustav Jung. Jung believed that some parts of architecture are the result of projecting the inner state of the architect. However, the expression of Jung archetypes is limitless, a number of them, such as Persona and Shadows, play a key and crucial role in regulating the human psychological personality. Since Carl Gustav Jung and many other phenomenologists -such as Gaston Bachelard- have emphasized the correlation between psyche and architecture, and its followed by "house", the present study seeks to discovers and interprets the essence of these archetypes in the context of architecture of the traditional houses of the central plateau of Iran, during the Qajar era, by explaining and descripting the concepts of Persona and Shadow archetypes.This article aims to inspect the relationship between the traditional house of the central plateau of  Iran, during the Qajar era, and the archetypes of Persona and Shadow in the discourse between architecture and psychoanalysis.

Research Questions:

 which archetypal themes of Persona and shadow are found in the architectural components of the traditional houses of the central plateau of Iran during the Qajar era?

The current research is a mixed research method with a predominance of qualitative paradigm and phenomenological attitude. The qualitative content analysis is applied in combination with inductive and deductive approach. In order to confirm the research findings, quantitative method and Cronbach's alpha coefficient and one-sample T-test are used.

The results show that there are common implications in recognizing Persona and exterior elements (including walls, materials, Badgir, entrance) and Shadow and internal elements (including the central courtyard and its belonging components as surrounding walls, corridor, the cellar and the basement) in the traditional houses in the central plateau of Iran, during the Qajar era. In addition, a number of common grounds such as communication with society, pseud individuality, protection, secrecy, impenetrability, homogeneity with the outside, the outer side ,and immutability have been found between Persona and architectural components of the aforementioned traditional houses. In the same way, the concepts such being inward, concealment, being two-sided (positive and negative coexistence), and contradiction to the outer side correspond to the Shadow.