DURABILITY AND DYNAMISM OF CULTURAL IDENTITY IN RECENT RESIDENTIAL COMPLEXES (CASE STUDY: KERMANSHAH RESIDENTIAL COMPLEXES FROM 1980)

Cultural identity and the analysis of its dimensions and components are among the most important issues facing developing societies. There are many studies in this field, but no reliable theoretical knowledge has been written, that can provide practical models for the durability and dynamism of cultural identity and illustrate its relationship with architecture. The importance of studying the issue of identity in residential areas is reflected in the impressive changes in the architecture and urban planning of cities in the21st century. Developments in residential spaces are gradually doubling after land reform, urban population growth, and the use of new construction technologies. Kermanshah is one of the developing metropolises that has undergonemany changes since developments of the Pahlavi period. The purpose of this study is to find the relationship between cultural identity and architecture of residential spaces and explain the position of durability and dynamism within this relationship.Based on Structuration theory, architecture acts as a social system of reproduction (reflection) of structure, and culture operates as the structure of residential spaces. Structures are "validated" affairs that humans create in interaction with phenomena and the environment, which are continuously recreated and reproduced in the context of society and everyday life. In this approach, structuration is the conditions governing the continuity or deformation of structures, and identity is representation of social systems. Thus, the analysis of the structural principles of systems focuses on methods of identification and distinguishing identity. If rules and resources that make up a system are discovered in the structures, all its components could be explained in its reproduction. The case study focuses on residential spaces in a part of 22 Bahman district of Kermanshah and tracks its evolution since 1978.Residential spaces in this research are investigated in four types: primitive villas,  recent villas, primitive apartments, and newer apartments. Then, by conceptualizing in three categories--individual attitude, social attitude and human attitude towards nature and the environment--and by interviewing the inhabitants of residential spaces, the degree and correlation of durability and dynamism between the sources and rules of cultural identity and residential spaces are analyzed and evaluated. The relation between components of durability and dynamism of cultural identity and architecture of residential spaces is then illustrated by charts and tables. Based on the research findings, regarding the durability and dynamism of cultural identity in relation to the architecture of residential spaces in Kermanshah in recent decades, it can be said that from the 1980 AD until now, the durability of the cultural identity of the family and the architecture of residential spaces has gradually decreased and their dynamism has increased exponentially. As for the relationship between the cultural identity and architecture of residential spaces, we argue that although this dynamism is stronger and weaker in some components, it is often analogous in the family culture and the structure of the residential space. In this regard, the contradictory components between the durability and dynamism of cultural identity and the architecture have been revealed in the form of residents' dissatisfaction.