Policy Modeling of Islamic-Iranian Urban Symbols (Based on the views of cultural elites)

Urban symbols carry people's shared memories and cultural and social concepts and convey broad implicit meanings to the minds of the people of a city. Today's architecture is not based on our cultural space for various reasons. No matter how much urban symbols are based on Western architecture, they affect the culture of the country and equally alienate the society from Islamic and Iranian culture. To achieve a city with desirable symbols, it is necessary to form a model appropriate to the characteristics of that culture and inspired by religious teachings. The data required were collected by documentary and library studies. Then, interviews with some elites in the field of culture were on the agenda. Content analysis method was used to analyze the data. In this article, 95 interpretive codes, 15 organized themes and finally 5 comprehensive categories were extracted from the text of the interviews and the dimensions and components of the desired model were determined and the relations between them were explained. Inclusive categories of this model include: the basics of symbolism, the experiences of symbolism, the function of symbols, the civilization of symbols, and the ecology of symbols. Using this model, cultural policymakers will be able to take advantage of the experiences of other countries and pay attention to the cultural and environmental situation of the country to the status of cultural policy in the field of urban symbols. It is suggested that cultural policy be made with a view to the revival of urban Islamic-Iranian symbols.