نشریه فرهنگ معماری و شهرسازی اسلامی
سال چهارم شماره 1 (پیاپی 6، بهار و تابستان 1397)

The culture of a city is the pattern that at once repre sents the city as a whole and the semantic atmos phere or context in which it develops and evolves. In this respect, a city’s culture is nothing other than its system of meanings – of meaningful symbols or sym bolic meanings – and their formal/physical patterns. An essential strategy to identify an urban culture is to take account of the various types or forms of urban spaces as well as their meanings and concepts. Therefore, it seems necessary to gain a comprehen sive understanding of the stages of develop ment/evolution of urban spaces as well as the relation between representations of meaning and culture in a given period. With a cultural approach to the research subject and an exploration of the city from a cultural point of view, we aim to categorize the effects of cul ture on the formation of urban structures and forms. By analyzing the meanings and concepts of structural urban elements, we intend to present a reading of the formal/physical concepts and meanings of the case, i.e., the city of Ardabil. Urban spaces are thought of as influential cultural environments that may be effec tive in shaping community infrastructure. Throughout history, there have been many cities across the world that used to be important for short or long periods due to political, social or cultural reasons, thus, rank ing high among cities. One of them is Ardabil, which used to be of special importance for its political and cultural status and reached its culmination in the Sa favid era. Ardabil was deemed a sacred place by the Safavid Dynasty.  Because of Sheikh Safi al-Din’s Shrine, the religious status of the city was multiplied. It should be noted that Ardabil acquired a new and quite unprecedented significance in the Safavid era. The present research addresses the conceptual posi tion of the city of Ardabil during the Safavid era, which is considered by many Iranians as the era of the resurgence of Shiite Islam. The main question is: How did culture manifest itself in the formation and devel opment of the city of Ardabil in the Safavid era? To answer this question, we represent the meanings of culture in three major urban spaces of Ardabil, in cluding Sheikh Safi al-Din’s Shrine, the Bazaar and Jom’e (Jame’) Mosque. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the meanings of prominent spaces in Ardabil city from a cultural perspective, in particu lar, through representing the meanings and concepts of the city’s culture in the Safavid era. The study uses an exploratory method and literature review proce dures to present an analysis based on Stuart Hall’s “Circuit of Culture” for representations of meanings. The findings indicate that the holy concept of Sheikh Safial-Din’s shrine as Safavid governance origin; ba zaar as a main part of urban life and city magnificent; and Jom'e mosque as a religious center conceptually consolidating urban spaces represent the meaning of urban spaces. Representation of spatial meanings in the Safavid-era Ardabil was closely linked to power relations and, thus, the city’s culture reflected the re ligious system, which was based on the legitimacy of the Shiite Safavid rule.

Domes and their proportions play an important role in the visual aesthetics of Islamic architecture. Despite the importance of this element of Iranian architec ture, no significant studies have been conducted on its geometric proportions. Previous researches are mainly concerned with their history, drawing meth ods, formal typology and structural-climatic charac teristics. The first question of the study concerns the concinnity of the dome and the variables that can re produce its form and formal proportions. The second question, which in fact constitutes the main research question, is: What is the relationship between the proportions of variables composing the geometric form of the dome and people’s aesthetic prefer ences? And, to compound this question further, what is the approximate value of this relationship in nu merical proportions? To answer these questions, the research was conducted in two stages. The primary stage involved evaluations to identify the variables that, through being changed, could help reproduce the greatest number of dome types. One the one hand, drawing data from previous studies did not suf fice to achieve this goal. On the other hand, control ling or limiting these variables was crucial for obtain ing a numerical proportion between them. The se cond stage involved a survey design which was ad ministered in two phases: pre-test and main test. The main test was designed as a multiple-choice computer survey in which the respondents were asked to select the dome which they perceived as the most beautiful from among a set of four presented domes, with var ied proportions of one dome category based on the findings. In choosing the domes for the survey, we took care to select the types of domes whose forms were more familiar to our Iranian sample of respond ents. Three pre-questionnaires were also distributed to control the effects of such factors as mode of presentation, light and materials. We first studied and categorized the concept of proportion, the types of domes and effective variables in the reproduction of the outer form of the domes and, then, evaluated the aesthetic experience of the respondents through pre senting manipulated visual stimuli of “shoulder” and “base” sections of the dome. The data were fed into IBM SPSS Statistics and modelled by MANOVA and repeated measure ANOVA. The participants included an available sample of 86 students (f=40, m=46; ma joring in architecture=41, majoring in other fields=45) selected from among the students of all faculties at Tabriz Islamic Art University. The participants took part in our exclusive experiment designed and coded with OpenSesame, an open-source software product. The findings suggest the existence of a significant re lationship between the aesthetic preferences of the respondents and the proportions composing the di mensions of the domes, especially the ones with a “base” section (2±0.06). This study shows that the beauty of Iranian-Islamic domes is not a coincidence; but rather, it follows a certain set of aesthetic princi ples and rules.

The contemporary theoretical literature seems to be characterized by a lack of focus on reading architec tural works, in particular, visiting users’ readings of contemporary Iranian mosques. The mosque, as an important symbol of the Iranian-Islamic architecture, endows the field with a special sensitivity. In our ex ploration of visiting users’ readings from the per spective of form and symbolism as the central focus of the present study, we consider the mosque as a structure composed of form, meaning, apparent manifestations and abstract concepts. Today, for various reasons, we are witness to the emergence of mosques whose users lack a shared understanding of them. Therefore, an analysis of how visiting users read an architectural structure and the factors af fecting the reading can help clarify this process. It can also help us provide effective strategies for de signing mosques with divine symbols whose refer ences/meanings can be optimally read or deci phered, by the average visiting user. The present study is a fundamental research with practical objec tives and it features a descriptive-analytical design in terms of its general approach and procedures. First, we developed a model for reading contemporary mosques through a review of literature and a survey of experts’ viewpoints. We used the model as the basis of inclusion into the field study. Then, we eval uated and compared visiting users’ readings of nine cases selected from among 180 contemporary mosques in Tabriz as located on a spectrum of simi larity/dissimilarity to traditional mosques. Question naires, interviews and observation were used to collect the required data. The results showed that, in addition to apparent and symbolic elements such as domes and minarets, abstract concepts such as peace of mind and spirituality play an important role in the reading of contemporary mosques. It seems that Shiite jurisprudential decrees, as our criteria for analyzing user readings, include certain principles for evaluating some of the elements involved in reading such as style, patterns, embellishments, minarets and altars. Although some important elements in the reading of Iranian mosques – including but not limited to domes, porches and forecourts – cannot be evaluated with the above-mentioned criteria, they are necessary for a better read ing/understanding of the meanings associated with contemporary mosques due to their recurrence and assimilation in the historical course of the evolution of mosques.

Although globalization refers to the global scale, as in contrast to the local/cultural dimension, it is subject to cross-cultural interaction. Hence, globalization re quires global thinking based on universal concepts which allow for cross-cultural dialogue and under standing. The interaction between regional thoughts is a sine qua non of global thinking and it requires the extension of thinking from the local to the global scale. At this larger scale, there is no way of avoiding encounters and dialogues with others. Although dia logue is made possible via language and translation, agreement would be impossible without shared con cepts and mentalities. Thinking and speaking about Islamic architecture is not an exception either. Speaking of Islamic art and architecture at the global scale is associated with certain challenges. One im portant challenge is the misunderstandings sur rounding the meanings of these terms. The greater portion of these misunderstandings is rooted in Ori ental studies. On the one hand, the debates on such terms inside the Islamic world are subject to implied assumptions that may not be acceptable to the out siders. On the other hand, both architecture and Is lam are complex and controversial concepts, giving rise to disagreements among experts. In addition, the cultural aspects of these concepts, as rooted in their nature, pose the challenge of cultural relativity, which is an obstacle to mutual understanding at the global scale. It is no surprise, then, that the concept of Is lamic architecture is misunderstood in global dia logues. Considering all this, if these terms are to be discussed and thought globally, such barriers must be overcome. To have a global dialogue about Islamic ar chitecture, it is necessary to rethink its constituent el ements, i.e., Islam and architecture, in a more pro found and rational way. One way to rethink a concept is to consider its dictionary definition(s) so as to better understand the meanings that it conveys. On the one hand, language is a cultural phenomenon which serves as the main medium of intra- and inter-cultural communication; so, a comparative, cross-cultural, lin guistic study can help us better understand a concept. On the other hand, definitions prepare the ground for collective agreement on a concept among the experts in a field of study and, thus, help us overcome the limits of cultural relativity. Therefore, exploring the definitions provided for religion and architecture would facilitate the feasibility of studying the relation ship between these two concepts and, as a result, dis cussing Islamic architecture. Relaying on a rational definition of religion according to Islamic wisdom, the present study addresses the literal/lexical definitions of architecture. Religion is defined as a coherent sys tem of beliefs, morals and practical principles that shape an individual’s lifestyle. Based on this defini tion, we explore and compare the literal definitions of “architect” and “architecture” in both English and Persian lexicons: An “architect” lives a life of serving other people’s lives and “architecture” is a theoreti cal-practical process whose product is livable struc tures for human beings. These two are not only con nected to religion but they are also religious in nature.

One of the major challenges in the field of architec ture is the reading and critiquing individual works re gardless of relevant textual layers that may affect the formation of the work. The main concern of the pre sent research is the great importance of criticism to the architectural community. Unfortunately however, the lack of systematic readings of architectural works has led to the absence of reliable criticisms that may help improve the quality of the works. As one of the most widely used concepts in contemporary literary criticism, intertextuality refers to the idea that a text is interconnected with earlier and later texts; there fore, every text should be read and appreciated in relation to other texts. As a concept, intertextuality is not exclusive to literary arts. It is also relevant to other artistic subjects including cinema, painting, mu sic, architecture, photography and, in general, all forms of cultural or artistic production. Intertextuality has grown out of the field of literary criticism and has been put to use in reading and critiquing other artistic texts as well. In this study, we intend to read architec tural works through an application of the theory of in tertextuality to the field of architectural criticism. By relying on an intertextual reading, this study ad dresses the relations between peritext and intertext elements and their impact on the formation of the overall meaning of architectural works. We have for mulated the Intertextuality Reading Model for the in tertextual reading of architecture based on the theory of intertextuality and have evaluated the model by applying it to our reading of Al-Qadir Mosque as a case study. The question that we, herein, seek to an swer is: How do we read architectural works based on the Intertextuality Reading Model? This study uses a qualitative design. Data collection was conducted via descriptive procedures and content analysis was car ried out via discursive procedures, i.e., logical argu ments. The study focuses on the theory of intertextu ality and addresses the different layers of the text, i.e., the architecture work, in light of syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes, diachronic and synchronic ap proaches, codification and implications. Our findings indicate that the use of an intertextual method pre vents superficial readings of architectural works, fa cilitates the understanding of hidden layers of mean ing and activates broader paradigms of interpretation. The different semantic aspects of an architectural work in intertextual relations can be uncovered by a plurality of different layers at the vertical (“dia chronic”) axis of its semiotic system and the horizon tal (“synchronic”) axis of its codification system.

Understanding the invaluable history of Iranian archi tecture and utilizing its sustainable bases, principles and patterns can help us improve architecture both in the present and in the future. To understand Ira nian architecture, it is essential that we can read it thoroughly and correctly; but before that, we need to have a comprehensive definition of it. So, the main question of this research is: How should we read Ira nian architecture? And that question gives rise to two more questions: What is Iranian architecture? And why should we read it? To answer these questions, we first surveyed experts (in two groups: researchers and designers) for their viewpoints on Iranian archi tecture. The collected data were analyzed, catego rized and codified in three groups: the definition, the necessity and the method of reading architecture. The findings are presented below as based on the three research questions:  What is Iranian architecture? The resulting data were coded into five categories: architect, goal, material, form and context. In this step, based on the codes, we adapted Aristotle’s the ory of the “four causes of being” to develop a concep tual model of architecture including its four causes (material, formal, efficient and final) and its different types of contexts (natural, social and formal/physical). This model is aimed at finding an answer to the ques tion “What is Iranian architecture?” and serves as a framework for the other two questions.  Why should we read the history of Iranian architecture?   The collected data about the necessity of reading architecture were coded into three categories: ex tracting the principles, exploring the patterns and uti lizing those principles and patterns in contemporary architecture.   How should we read Iranian architecture?   By answering the previous two questions, we have approached the answer to the third question. Identi fying the goals of reading and the relevant factors will guide us in reading architecture. To reach a practical method for reading architecture, we have drawn on our experiences in teaching university courses in ar chitectural history as well as student activities. We will propose a five-stage reading process (description, analysis, criticism, instruction and practice) and three stages of reading (before, during and after visiting a building). Finally, we will present a checklist of the necessary activities for reading Iranian architecture and lay out the results of using the proposed reading method in five areas of architecture including educa tion, research, production, media and policy-making.