JOURNAL OF RESEARCHES IN ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE
Year:2014 | Volume:1 | Issue:2|Papers Count:9

In the Islamic architecture of Iran, meaning, aesthetics, shape and structure are four fundamental factors.It is by an appropriate combination of them that a traditional architect will be able to manifest an image of metaphysical world in the material world. A rational and integrated relation of these factors has put the Islamic architecture of Iran in an outstanding position. An important challenge of the modern architecture is the lack of an integrated relation among its constituting factors. The main cause of this shortcoming is moving away from traditional roots and doctrines which have lead to the disintegration in different phases of design process and construction, changing architects education, and fast construction.In order to disclose the relation between metaphysical factors (meaning and aesthetics) and physical factors (function, form, geometry and structure) in architecture, it is first necessary to analyse cases that contain the relation in an outstanding way. For this reason, a number of majestic historical mosques, in which the manifestation of meaning in their form has been proved, have been studied. Literature on meaning, aesthetics, geometry and structure has been reviewed. Utilisation of the four factors in historical buildings of Iran has been explained. Relation among interfering factors in design process has been illustrated in the buildings. An algorithm for architectural design process in the modern world has been proposed in which the positions of the four factors have been defined.

Even though the design of Vali Asr Mosque, in adjacent to city theatre of Tehran, was completed and the construction project was fulfilled up to the first level in the previous urban management system of Tehran, the project stopped and completely changed in the new management system. Yet, what is the problem of the previous Vali Asr Mosque design? In order to gain experience for similar future cases, it is necessary to answer the above mentioned question. This research aims to improve the criterions and attributes of Mosque Design in institutes of decision making, policy making and executives in order to gain better results in this field of design. The method of this research is discursive and analytical and case study is used as the strategy of enquiry.This research has found the reason of change of the Vali Asr Mosque design in the attitude change of management system towards the definition, the position and the original values of Mosque as a worship space. Instead of being a religious recognition, Mosque of this attitude is considered as a passive and adaptable building in regards to its surrounding space.The new design has also been influenced by current international design styles which gain their theoretical roots of creating art pieces from secularism, de-constructivism and anarchism. These approaches which are in complete inconsistency with Islamic wisdom and Art Philosophy, have unfortunately entered our contemporary styles of Architecture and urbanism, and now are aggressing their way in to religious buildings and Mosque design as the most important elements of our urban design.It is hoped that the planners, policy makers and custodians of religious buildings and Mosques could take a lesson from these cases and state laws, strategic regulations, practical solutions and correct supervision to prevent Idol construction instead of Mosque construction in the land of Muslims.

This article seeks to compare the standards of urban life quality and extracted concepts of Islamic city based on four causes of architecture.The main reason of this research is comparing what researchers mentioned as urban life quality criteria and standards and features of an Islamic city drawn by the Islamic sources.All the schools of architecture and urban designing agree that the most important goal of designing is to meet the physical and psychological needs of mankind with the highest quality. Although there is not an exact definition of quality of life that all researchers agree on, but it is possible to achieve the main standards and features by reviewing the studies that have been done about this subject.To achieve this goal, the criteria of urban life quality from the western point of view has been studied and classified while extracting, to make it possible to evaluate the features quantitatively. Besides, features of Islamic utopia are studied and extracted from both religious references and ancient Islamic cases.The main issue for comparing the results is the effect of architects and urban designers' points of view and believes on urban spaces. In fact, subjective cause between four causes of architecture is the main source of architectural inspiration. Therefore, the extracted criteria of life quality have been studied based on this scale and results show that only 1% of urban life quality features are driven from this point of view. In other words just 1% of these features have been considered for meeting clients’ spiritual needs, while this ratio in Islamic city features is much bigger and it means that the role of architects and designers believes is too important in Islamic view. Believing in God's wisdom and the union, behind the diversity that is seen in Islamic architecture, makes Islamic architects’ view more comprehensive and wiser than other designers.To sum up, Islamic utopia tries to achieve a better human life by meeting their physical, psychological and especially spiritual needs. Shortly, it illustrates the intention of “Remembrance” in architecture and urban designing.

Regarding the key theme of the paper, visual privacy, it is first necessary to review the content of urban studies to find out why/how has privacy been discussed or ignored in urban studies to date. Instead of direct reference to the privacy, the urban studies literature mainly highlights the concepts of territoriality and personal space, two ways in which people create different types of boundaries to regulate their interaction with others in their environment.These two implicitly define the concept of privacy as both have acquired spatial and social dimensions. Alongside these two concepts which were mainly borrowed from behavioral studies, there are some references to the concepts of privacy and community together in urban studies as well. In line with these, privacy is more concerned with private domain or intimate sphere and community with public one. In western culture, changes since the eighteenth century onwards has diminished private sphere as the institution of the family loses monopoly control over its privatized domain and ensured access to the public sphere, thus, the dichotomy of public and private space was mitigated. For this reason, direct reference to the concept of privacy which is more concerned with private domain has been ignored in urban and architectural studies in western culture. On the contrary, within the urban context of eastern culture especially those of the Muslim world the privacy is an utmost concern due to the nature of life was contextualized based on the Islamic law. Based on the holy Koran, as the main source of the Islamic law, the private domain has acquired prime importance because the family unit was recognized as the base of entire socio-cultural structure and a self-sustaining institution which ensures ideological and cultural stability over the entire spectrum of society. It is evident from this review that the concept of privacy is a ritualized and societal concept which has had a great influence on the urban form of the Islamic cities. Its diffusion throughout Islamic lands and its continuity from the pre-Islamic era made it a timeless and placeless concept transmittable to successive generations. Therefore, we can point out that, the core shaping forces underlying the Islamic cities are based upon the concept of privacy and its ground rules (internalized structure based on constraints and thresholds), which emanated from Islamic law. This defined a particular urban form in all Islamic lands which differs greatly from that referred to as the Western model. Therefore, in contrast to the thinking of some orientalist scholars, we can recognize that Islamic settlements are neither fortuitous nor amorphous in their organization, but they are expressions responding to patterns of social intercourse and allegiance particular to Islamic society and its natural context. The logical consequence of the concept of privacy and its relevance to the selected context concerns the way this concept and its relevant features determine the organization of space. It mostly contextualized a kind of layout to protect women from the eyes of strangers and to create clear distinctions and hierarchical spaces to highlight the role and the character of women in the building of the Islamic cities.

One of the issues in theory field of architecture especially in Islamic architecture which has been considered in academic assemblies in recent decades is the field of symbolism and its different approaches.Basically, symbolism is one of the important features of Islamic architecture to the extent that some scholars in Islamic architecture believe that symbolism is necessary to fulfill this kind of architecture.This article deals with the problem of what is symbol and generally sign in Islamic architecture and consequently, how the symbolism can be implemented in Islamic architecture.The purpose of this article is explaining different approaches that Muslim architects used for symbolism in their works; meanwhile with explaining the nature and characteristics of each of these approaches, lessons would be learned for future symbolism in Islamic architecture. To illustrate the problem of this article, a hybrid method consisting of logical-argumentation research and qualitative content analysis research is used, and the method of gathering data in this research is documents studies. The theoretical foundation of this research is based on Islamic wisdom so the research results have enough competence for the application in Islamic architecture. According to these results, in addition to credit architectural landmarks, there are genetic signs which can be manifested in various architectural components such as geometry and form. Symbolism in Islamic architecture requires attention to both these two types of signs.Using these two types of signs, two main approaches are available for symbolism in Islamic architecture which is inductive and deductive symbolism. The first approach is based on sensory tools while the second one is often based on rational and intuitive tools. In this paper, meanwhile these approaches are explained, several examples will be presented for each of them.

This paper attempts to identify the thoughts and the infrastructure of thinking in architects of Islamic-Iranian mosques to study the role of Qebla in the architecture of mosques in city of Ilam. Aim of the research is discovering the hidden aspects of Qibla and the importance of traditional architecture in attention to "the Qibla direction" in design of Islamic-Iranian mosques. So it is a lesson for contemporary architects of Ilam to correct the current process in design and not to forget the attention to Qibla in the architecture of mosques. Hypothesis of this research is the difference between the contemporary and traditional mosques in attention on Qibla direction. This is a historic research. In this research, 21 mosques of this city are studied and analyzed in positioning, geometry, the arrangement of interior spaces and the direction of entrance to Qibla. Analysis of the history of traditional mosques and recognition of Qibla in successful examples of these mosques is an introduction to analyze the theoretic differences between Ilam architects. The study shows that there is not enough attention to Qibla direction in the contemporary design of Ilam mosques. So the sanctity, spirituality and basic identity of these mosques are missed.

Traditional societies and religious and public buildings and cities will always have a special role in the expression of the sacred, mostly common values that exalted the purpose according to God and the truths of existence were in charge with the advent of modernism and changing human relationship with the divine. while changing values and reducing it to a purely experimental purposes as the substantial part of this important mission, the Museum was transferred to the emerging phenomenon. In contemporary museum as an institution that can have the object and effect of its connection with the universe, the data to understand and supply the above mentioned fact is incomplete. Phenomenological approach to study the logic of museum features is through variety of word origins and roots of garlic Genesis and evolution of the tradition of the modern concept of the museum. The results show that although the museum contains undeniable values by providing a platform for the generation and transfer of knowledge, but the kind of understanding that comes from looking at the human-centered, detail oriented and modern view, as notable flaw, is in need of revision. So in order to get closer to a true understanding of the concepts mentioned in Islamic culture, focus on its proper relationship with the human - nature of the museum is defined. Museums as a special institution in the universe, In connection with its defined, is trying to link a range of natural history and natural places, with a verse approach towards spiritual and cultural - culture, memory and the representation In order to understand the growth and development of human life and reasonable relation to the actual creation step.

Performing diverse activities in urban spaces were assumed a part of the past culture. Moreover, now urban spaces do not have a specific definition in terms of quality. It seems that today’s materialist world is more seeking to increase return in investment and economic quantities and this quantity oriented state have kept it behind the qualitative issues. For this, faded presence of people in spaces, makes performing this research essential. The effort of this study is to evaluate and have an adjustment comparison between components making urban spaces from the view of western theoreticians and Iranian-Islamic scientists. It seems that remarkable presence of social relations is among the most effective components in increase of urban space’s quality. The data of this study were evaluated in two qualitative and quantitative sections. In qualitative section by help of content analysis method the viewpoints were compared. The quantitative section was conducted by use of analytical description method and a questionnaire was prepared and it was studied in three neighborhoods of Tehran. The data extracted from this questionnaire was inferentially analyzed via SPSS software and they were analyzed beside the other findings gained from literature of the subject. The three neighborhoods of Hafthoz Square, 2nd Sqaure of Niroohavaee and 15 Khordad Street were selected in terms of morphology. The findings of this research indicate that highlighted presence of activities for communication and recreation is highly effective in improving the urban space’s quality. The need for comfort, removal of the need for food and eating is among other components which were effective in the view of people that all of these components in Quran are mentioned as specifications of the space around human being. As a result, the main components of urban space’s quality questioned in this study were convergent to the components introduced by Islamic resources which are neglected in contemporary urban planning despite the emphasis of western resources and scientists.

Mosque tells the religious mission of the society and its social mission. Actually, the mosque is like a mirror that shows your community's religious situation. The mosque's architecture is an interpretation of elite perceptions and the essence of subjectivity and the Muslim faith. From this respect the building of the mosque can tell the extent and nature of any Era. Furthermore, the architecture of the mosque has implications for the knowledge bases of Islam. Therefore, Mosque architect understands the dimension and mental degrees of his time. This research has been done with The purpose of structural elements used in traditional and modern mosque and relationship with the child's mind. And argues this entry: what is structural elements’ effect of the mosque on the child's mind, and how is it different in the traditional and modern mosques. In this study, the utilized method of research is descriptive - analytical and the Methods of data collection are field investigation and library. Also, the statistical community has 96 children and the analysis of the painting, pulp and toys are applied after their visit from mosques in order to depict the children's perceptions of traditional and modern mosques. The finding of this research suggests that there is a very close and deep relationship between the elements of the traditional mosque and the child's mind. This result is very weak when it comes to the modern mosques which contain no traditional symbols recommended by the principles of the Prophet in the mosques.