Contextualism in the Works of Non-Iranian Architects during the Pahlavi I EraCase Study: Alborz and Iranshahr Schools

Practicing architects duringthe Pahlavi I era can be divided into three main groups, including traditional architects, those who were educated abroad, and non-Iranian architects. This research focuses on the third groupand attempts to study their views and influences on educational spaces from the viewpoint of contextualism. For this, Alborz high school in Tehran and Iranshahr high school in Yazd were examined as case studies. The research method is a combination of qualitative and case study. The findings show that in both cases, the physical attributes of context such as material, ornament, and historical factors were considered in the design, whereas the bulk of the value system that shapes the infrastructure of functional and socio-cultural contexts, which affect educational methods and purposes, was ignored. This ignorance is morenoticeable in the first case which is located in the capital cityand whose design was under the influence of governmental systems and modern nationalism under the shadow of western thoughts. On the other hand, some other attributes of context such as Iranian educational methods and interactive open spaceswere considered in the second case