Journal of Studies on Iranian Islamic City
Year:2014 | Volume:- | Issue:15|Papers Count:8

Mosque, the center of monotheism should enjoy spiritual beauties. Innovative arts affiliated to architecture started from the early centuries of Islam, completed fully and grew in the Islamic ages and in a broad scale and diverse branches gave rise to the creation of holy and sacred arts in mosques. Iranian mosques in the early days of Islam before the Buyids dynasty had porches. However after that age and onwards, with regard to the special attention in the side of the nobles, wise men, and in particular the architect and buildings artists, the mosques underwent main changes and the Shabestan (part of mosques covered with ceiling) designs and later on, the Chehl-Sotooni (Forty Columns) were created with ideal performance and in particular artistic noticeable faces in Safavid age. The trend of mosque construction since Safavid period up to the present has enjoyed vary beautiful designs and images in façade construction and has presented many immense and novel works in Iran to the Islamic world. In general, mosque construction should enjoy three principles of design, structure performance, divine outstanding building faces, using various materials, good taste and it should complete the mosque beautification from every aspect. In the structure of today’s mosques, in addition to the inclusion of these three principles, it is necessary to build necessary spaces in an acceptable scale and with the inclusion of architectural principles, so that the mosque could serve in addition to being a monotheism center, as a base for creating cultural, educational, research, artistic, recreational and sports motivations for the public and in particular the youth through its spaces. Relying on descriptive, historical and analytical method, this study was conducted and the necessary data was collected via library studies and field observations.

According to the views of researchers in the field of environment design, the issues of capabilities of architectural spaces to respond to human’s needs have not been tackled as they deserve it. Taking into consideration, the latest research outcomes about this subject, the present article is pursuing to discuss a comprehensive and applied model of human’s needs and levels of architectural space capabilities to make a bed-ground to meet his needs from the perspective of Islam. For this purpose, a review was made on the most important Islamic views about the subject. First, through a comparative study, the data obtained about the human’s needs was classified. Then, putting the definition made by Imam Ali (a.s.) on the degrees of human’s self as the pivot, a model of human’s need corresponding with his ‘self’ was presented. With regard to the findings and using the method of inference and logical reasoning, the capabilities of architectural space at four levels corresponding with the fourfold needs of human (physical, mental, rational and spiritual needs) were defined. At the following stage, considering the Islamic teachings, some samples of the conceptual strategies and practical approaches to create fourfold capability in architectural space were presented. Afterwards, in order to study the executive capabilities and materialize the approaches presented and their roles in creating lasting architectural works, two samples of Iranian architectural worlds, whose qualifications are confirmed by experts of architecture (Houses of Zinat-ol Molk in Shiraz and Broujerdis in Kashan) were studied and the presented approaches were retrieved in them. Finally, based on the outcomes of this research, it is possible to put forth that the architectural space can create four levels corresponding with the human’s fourfold needs. However, the important point is that the architectural space has this capability to meet the human’s physical and spiritual needs relatively, but it only can provide a ground to supply his rational and spiritual needs, because the humans’ evolutionary route is a knowledgeable and an optional issue.

At the present age, with the emergence of new technologies, we are witnessing the construction of mosques which have a physical body different from the past mosques. Their location besides the traditional mosques in today’s urban textures, arises this question in the minds of addresses “whether or not, today’s mosques in new shape can pave grounds for the growth and elevation of human which is the main goal of worshipping” ? The purpose of this article is to study the quality of adaptation of shape and physical body of new mosques with the specific theoretical foundations of mosques in Islamic wisdom. To this end, the case study of the mosque of Vali-Asr (a) crossroad in Tehran (Reza Daneshmir’s Design) which has a innovative physical body has been conducted. The research methodology in this article is in the method of logical reasoning (concept through example). So, first the theoretical foundations of mosque have been put forth in two dimensions of urban prestige and internal worshipping space based on the Islamic jurisprudence. Then, the standards of mosque design has been extracted from it and on that basis, the typology of contemporary mosques has been discussed. Later on, the features of Vali-Asr (a) crossroad mosque in Tehran as a sample of modern mosques along with its theoretical foundations have been introduced and studied with regard to the obtained principles and standards. The results indicate that some of the changes resulting from the advancement of technology in architecture is essential, but it is necessary to consider a specific border for it, so that the form changes could not make a change in the humane elevated concepts. Furthermore, the architecture of the mosque should both be innovative and narrator of Islamic teachings. In the mosque of Vali-Asr (a) crossroad, efforts to be innovative and harmony with the environment has diminished the Islamic identity and meaning in it and the building has lost its reading which is essential for a mosque.

Despite the fact that the endowed lands have always had an effective role in the formation and the space construction of Iranian cities, but in recent years, many of these lands in the heart of cities, have been left intact or lagged behind development and have intensified urban dispersed development. This trend, in addition to intensification of disperse growth, has led to the porosity of urban texture, increase of service costs, incompatibility in the neighboring uses and reduction of life quality inside the cities. What is noticed particularly in this article is the lands lagged behind the development in Yazd. In this city, about 7 percent of lands are endowed lands and about half of these lands are located in the heart of urban textures, but they do not have suitable urban use and do not enjoy necessary dynamism and efficiency. Thus, the re-development of these endowed lands in Yazd is considered as a necessity to have an optimal use of intra-city lands. On this basis, the present article intends to measure the capacity of endogenous development in the lands and spaces endowed at the District 3, Region 2 of Yazd and prioritizing them based on the research indexes. The research methodology is of the descriptive-analytic type. For this purpose, in data collection, the library method and field study have been used and the AHP model also has been employed to give weight to the research indexes. The weight related to the standards and indexes has been calculated by using 30 questionnaires completed by expert and through Expert Choice program. The results of the findings show that in determining the capacity of the endowed land development of the region under consideration, the managerial-institutional factors with the significance coefficient of 0.664 have the greatest impact and the physical-space factors with the significance coefficient of 0.208, have the least impacts and the social and economic factors, each with 0.064, have insignificant impacts in measuring the capacity of endowed lands development in the mentioned region. Also, by preparing maps related to each of the standards and indexes, and overlapping them with the application of related weight, a map was prepared in which it classifies the endowed lands in four groups based on development capacity and priority. It is such that the endowed lands with the first priority have the greatest capacity and the endowed lands with the fourth priority have the least capacity for development.

The issue of passive defense has been considered as one of the important measures adopted by rulers and founders in the trend of formation and expansion of cities in the history of Iranian architecture. This type of defense was intended to minimize the damage on local forces against the enemy attack and was usually performed without the intervention of human forces. The present research tries to respond to this question that with regard to the awareness of the founders of Dehdasht city in respect of the necessity of political and economic security for Dehdasht, for what reasons, the passive defense variables have not been noticed? In response to this question, this assumption is put forth that due to lack of proper use of the two principles of separation and scatterings, the city has undergone serious damages in six time sections. Using the descriptive and historical analytical approaches, this research has tried to evaluate the role of components effective of this defensive system in the process of formation, expansion and disintegration of Dehdasht city in Safavid and Qajar ages. The data collection method has been made based on library researches and field studies. The results show that Dehdasht city, since Safavid up to Qajar ages has had a incorrect use of passive defense. This has put Dehdasht city exposed to intrusion and plundering during four hundred years in six time sections. This important issue in a short period of time has led to the destruction of the city and shift of one of the political and economic power centers to the southern cities such as Behbahan. There is no doubt that this incident has had an important role in exiting Dehdasht city from the row of economic dynamic cities and commercial routes.

One of the space features of urban and even rural regions, quarters and districts in our country is the feature of enjoying noticeable elements in particular of the religious type ones in their textures. These elements have been forgotten for various reasons in the course of time. At the same time, Iranians, with regard to their viewpoints and cultures, are dependent on such spaces. These spaces in the past have had interactional and effective relations with their own surroundings which can have it in the future as well. Achieving this issue is possible and of course inevitable through finding the causes of existing conflicts and developing new solutions to face it relying on a type of rational planning. In this article, efforts are made to have a comprehensive knowledge of theoretical foundations and field study by identifying two different types (the textures full and those in lack of religious outstanding elements) and using field, library and content analysis methods. Having matched or compared these two and using the existing experiences, it is tried to achieve the principles of an effective organizing trend to amend and promote the space structure, textures frame and finally to create a dynamic interaction (positive influence and receiving influence) with higher or lower functional levels (region, city and city surroundings) depending on the position which they have in cities and villages space structures. The most important results extracted from this research is the development of space organizing principles which have been expressed in two areas of (internal and peripheral) organizing, 9 strategic issues and 31 principles of organizing as a model for planning and design of textures full or void of religious noticeable elements and the necessities of decision making or decision taking about them in the related institutions.

Human and his relation with his surrounding environment and other humans has always been the preoccupations of designers. However, as the knowledge of environmental and behavioral sciences, it does not have a history more than some decades. Up to the present day, various theories and discussions have been put forth on the important and effective components on human and his communication with the society. “Privacy” and “Secrecy” are considered two basic concepts in this area. Recently, in many researches conducted, it is observed that in translating from English into Persian, the term” Mahramiyat” is used as an equivalence for privacy and used beside the word “ Khalvat”, whereas in the eastern culture, in particular, Islamic -Iranian culture, these two concepts have specific differences at the same time that they might overlap in some areas. Secrecy, despite being ignored has a deep root in Iranian culture, character and architecture. Being concerned about the act of considering these two concepts as the same concept and gradual diminish of the concept of secrecy in the Iranian contemporary architecture, made us elaborate the concept of each of these words. Clarifying the borders, and their similarities, we will be able to alert the Iranian designers and architects not to confuse these two words together and forget ‘secrecy’ simply. For this purpose, first, through library study, we will study these words morphologically and then reviewing the literature of the subject, the historical texts and reviewing the existing theories and views, we will cultivate these two concepts closely. Afterwards, through a comparative study, we will review the similarities and differences of these two concepts in some of the architectural examples. Finally, showing the inherent and basic differences of these two concepts in meaning and application, we will show to the Iranian activists in the area of architecture and urban development that the feature which is more colorfully seen in today’s Iranian architecture is the concept of privacy and not that of the secrecy. Using the strange concept of privacy and the lack of paying attention to the principles of Islamic-Iranian architecture is going to alter and demolish one of the original feature of our architecture, i.e secrecy.