TEACHING “THE INTRODUCTION TO WORLD ARCHITECTURE” IN IRAN: A THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF UNIVERSITY LECTURERS’ VIEWS

This research aims to examine how the World Architecture survey course is taught in Iranian universities so as to prepare the ground for changing its curriculum to make it more inclusive and diverse. The research participants are nine lecturers who teach world architecture in nine public universities, selected through purposive sampling. The data was collected through interviews and analyzed thematically and continued until saturation. The analysis revealed six main themes: teacher’s motivations, student learning outcomes, teaching approaches, teaching strategies, materials, and teaching problems. The findings indicate that the lecturers are graduates of architecture programs who are interested in history or have researched architectural history. The main student’s learning outcome is to strengthen their design skills by studying world architecture. Lecturers use a combination of eight teaching approaches: analytical, comparative, conceptual, contextual, cross-cultural, descriptive, historiographical and typological. They face several problems, such as limited time, low priority of the course in the curriculum, lack of reliable sources written in Persian, and difficulty of visiting historical monuments abroad. By exploring the motivations, outcomes, approaches, strategies, materials, and problems of teaching world architecture in Iran, this research contributes to the literature on architectural education and offers recommendations for curriculum development and innovation.