مجله منظر
پیاپی 66 (بهار 1403)

Over almost a decade, façade committees have been established in Tehran and then in other cities in imitation of the center to monitor the architecture of the buildings. This was a response to a demand that goes back several decades after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, which was first called for «identity» and then «Iranian-Islamic identity» in the city and architecture. The heightened sensitivity to «returning to oneself» and the beginning of the «Islamic renaissance» in the first years of the establishment of the Islamic Republic led to the establishment of numerous academic and religious meetings to examine the relationship between «tradition and modernity.» During the pre-revolutionary struggles, the spread of intellectuals› and revolutionaries› dissatisfaction with the regime›s self-defeat against the West led Farah Pahlavi, the cultural politician of the regime, to create an artificial and form-oriented movement by combining modern architecture with traditional elements. A generation of monumental architecture, such as the Museum of Contemporary Arts and the School of Management, was the result of this policy. To theorize this process, the «Link of Tradition and Technology» conference was held in Isfahan in the presence of a selected group of famous Iranian and world architects, chaired by Farah Pahlavi. At the same time, the official trend of the country›s architecture and what was promoted by the governing body in the guise of the model and law was a mutilated and meaningless modernism dependent on the consumption of luxury goods and imitation of the Western currents. The Islamic revolution represented the demand for the restoration of the historical identity of the Iranian nation. In the years before the revolution, however, no effective action was taken in this regard. The economic stagnation caused by the war and embargo, the ignorance of the relevant administrations in the country, and the gaining power of Western trends in the executive body of the system left no room for a scientific and deep response to the claim for identity restoration. In the 1990s, a study was conducted on the order set by the municipality for façade standards. The study method was similar to the procedure of bulletin makers, who managed the emotions of officials by selecting news. In the city of Tehran, where thousands of buildings were being built at the same time, a few special examples that no one except but a few knew about their existence became a symbol of the trend towards vulgarity; Taking advantage of the unanswered demand of the last century to return to oneself, extraordinary and strange decrees were issued: the use of vulgar colors was prohibited; and to make the rules religious, «prohibition of installing statues on the façade» was also added to the rules.The excitement caused by this biased and not rigorous study of urban management quickly led to the creation of institutions to intervene in the most private parts of society. Façade committees were formed to approve the façade plan, which was added to the previous technical documents. This committee expressed its existential philosophy to protect public rights. Since then, the façade committee in Tehran and many Iranian cities has become a tool to extend the issuance of permits, make construction more expensive, and impose the taste of committee members on thousands of applicants who need permits. The process of changing the rules has been based on the quantitative rise in technical details and is not related to the demand for national-religious identity. In this period, less effective and complicated details have been added to the basic criteria to justify the necessity of the existence of the committee›s action. Over a decade of its activity, the committee has failed to restore Iranian-Islamic identity. This claim is confirmed by the demand of the supreme leader of the revolution in the last report of the mayor of Tehran to the council (Rosen Online, December 23, 2023), emphasizing the movement towards Iranian-Islamic identity in urban architecture. This is the fundamental demand of a multidimensional and complex strategy that cannot be realized by simplifying the problem. Like Farah Pahlavi, who failed to divert the claim for identity with the superstructure and memorial measures, the façade committees will only have dissatisfaction. The perception of identity, in the sense of understanding the continuous nature of a phenomenon, depends on the survival of its existence. The understanding of the existence of a city, which is obtained through encountering and experiencing the space, is first dependent on the survival of the city›s existential components. The importance of the existence of the city is associated with its prerequisites and conditions for understanding its nature and identity. In the case of the survival of the city›s existential components, we can talk about its defining characteristics. The Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in organizing the city of Yathrab, named Madinah al-Nabi, also indicates his precision and insistence on the priority of the order of the components of the creation of the city rather than the form of urban elements. The knowledge related to space and place also validates the same procedure and the originality of the existence of the city in relation to its nature to achieve desirability.By giving priority to the taste of the committee members instead of the taste of the owner, it seems that the façade committees have not conformed to the verse «people are in control of their property» and have taken the wrong path in achieving the great goal they set. Instead of identifying and studying the nature of the city and the main components contributing to its creation, preservation, and expansion, they have completely stuck to the form of urban forms to claim identity. Understanding the identity of the city means having the ability to read its past from the city›s present face and experiencing the feeling and understanding of being in a place with specific standards and attitudes. The place whose elements have gradually acquired the color of time and the transformation of the faces have been so gradual and continuous that the sense of separation from the origin does not arise in the observer. It is clear that intervention in a complex phenomenon is of such a degree of importance that it has a direct effect on building the perception of citizens, and in addition to a hundred-year-old social demand, it was also favored by the beloved Prophet of Islam and played a prominent role in his life. First, it is very necessary, and second, it requires a method and is knowledge-based. The cover image is a view of Qom City, although it refers to the duality of two traditional and unrestrained views, confirming the confusion of this generation and city management in creating an identity view of their desired city.

The main street of the garden is one of the four important elements of the Iranian garden (entrance, street, pavilion, wall) and connects the entrance to the pavilion. But on what basis is this important element designed and what is the reason for the diversity of street in Iranian gardens? The answer to this question can open the way for street design in projects with the idea of an Iranian garden. The element of the street itself includes important components such as land, water and plants. Each of them has roles that summing up the role of these components results in the role of the street. Until now, many researches have been done on the components of Iranian Garden Street and they have been looked at from different angles. But which of these angles has been the most attention of the Iranian landscape architect for the design of each component of the street. To investigate this issue, ten gardens have been selected in different places and times, and through the investigation of these gardens, conclusions have been drawn for the design of the street and its role. The defined roles include functional-climatic, formal, spatial, socio-cultural and semantic. The role of each component of the street in the selected gardens has been qualitatively evaluated and finally the dominant role of that component has been concluded. Based on this, the component of earth has a dominant semantic role, the component of water has dominant roles of spatial, socio-cultural and semantic and the component of plant has a dominant roles of spatial and socio-cultural. But in general, the dominant roles repeated in the components of the street is the socio-cultural role. Also, the street role of each garden and as a result the reason for its design has been determined in this way. Iranian garden Street is a space of the garden where natural elements are honored, human beings are also honored, and the most human presence and social interactions take place there.

Relocating industries from the urban fabric of the cities emerging from globalization to their outskirts, like what happened in the 19th district of Tehran, has resulted in post-industrial landscapes and various and numerous social problems for these landscapes’ surrounding areas. Despite this issue, post-industrial landscapes are an opportunity to revive the dimensions of urban life; however, urban approaches on which actions have been taken in the 19th district, including the 2007 Master Plan of Tehran and the 2005 Detailed Plan of the 19th district, have not been successful in solving problems and increasing social sustainability. This article examines the reasons associated with the failure of the applied approaches in increasing social sustainability and attempts to understand how to revitalize post-industrial landscapes to increase social sustainability. For this reason, after studying the concept of landscape and post-industrial landscape, the standard views towards them, and social sustainability, different layers of the landscape of the case study were analyzed and integrated. Finally, the reasons for the failure of the currently used approaches were outlined, and general suggestions for solving social problems were provided. The result of the research is that the use of non-inclusive definitions of these landscapes has resulted in physical actions, ignoring the identity of these post-industrial landscapes, the main audiences, and their needs. However, the social problems in this area are not only related to physical issues but are also influenced by a set of characteristics. An accurate definition of the landscape by emphasizing the objective-subjective and holistic nature of the landscape by examining the different dimensions of post-industrial landscapes can lead to the origin of existing problems in the area. The problems of the residents around the kilns, who are their main audience in these landscapes, require comprehensive solutions according to the origin of the problems.

Following the culverting of rivers and the implementation of flood control infrastructure on riverbeds, people’s perceptions regarding the ecological dynamics of rivers, as well as environmental safety have been widely disturbed. This lack of accurate flood risk perception can potentially lead to many casualties and damages during severe flood events. Therefore, to achieve flood resilience, in addition to structural criteria, the improvement of non-structural criteria such as risk perception to enhance adaptation and preparedness of communities against floods, is considered a challenging topic. Considering the transition of river management from structural approaches to integrated approaches, which emphasize the participation of related disciplines, and the capability of urban design to enhance people’s perceptive experience of the environment, this study aims to conduct an interdisciplinary systematic review to investigate how urban design enters and integrates into the discussion of flood risk perception. By expanding the social-ecological model (SEM) of the study at different individual and environmental levels, three theoretical perspectives of environmental psychology, human geography, and nature conservation were selected as the foundation of the interdisciplinary study. Subsequently, by conducting a systematic review in the Scopus database in six steps, the role of urban design in improving flood risk perception was investigated. Urban design in the fields of environmental psychology, human geography, and nature conservation can play a critical role in expanding the perceptive experience of rivers and improving flood risk perception through perceived and aesthetic qualities, sense of place, and regulating ecosystem services, nevertheless urban design is facing many challenges in the mentioned fields. Therefore, as an initial step, urban design must determine how to adapt to these intervening factors and establish a balance with them.

The belief and nature-oriented thinking that are evident in the art and architecture of Iran have been manifested more prominently in Iranian miniature painting than in any other artistic branch. The presence of nature and its elements can be observed in decorative and applied arts, in simple and geometric forms, and in romantic, mystical, heroic, and festive motifs and narratives. Various flowers and plants are always present in Iranian miniatures, depicting gardens, flower-filled courtyards, and orchards with water and various birds. The combination of a star-filled sky with the moon and the sun represents a blend of the real and imaginary world; a part of which is reflected in Byzantine mosaic art, with some of these works clearly showing the influence of Iranian miniatures. The coloring and use of natural symbols and signs in Iranian painting and Byzantine mosaics have their roots in naturalistic thinking and rituals, examples of which can be found in the museums and art centers of Europe and Asia, as well as in the Mehr and Anahita temples in Iran. The most prominent examples of Byzantine mosaics can be seen in the churches of San Vitale, Sant’Apollinare, and the holy sepulchers in Ravenna, Italy, the apse of the Church of San Clemente in Rome, and the Church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The interplay and continuity of the Mithraic ritual in Christianity and Zoroastrianism have shaped the art and culture of both Zoroastrians and Christians in a way that combines new beliefs with ancient cultural and artistic traditions.

Due to the rise in the number of autistic children and their different sensory and cognitive performances in comparison to normal people, this research aims to develop the criteria of suitable therapeutic landscapes for autistic children based on biophilic landscape patterns. It also attempts to examine the effect of such patterns. Framed by theories of biophilic design theorists, this study employed a mixed-methods design to investigate if biophilic landscape patterns can influence children’s senses on two spectrums of suffering namely one and three, in three functional zones outdoors. For this purpose, adaptive patterns were piloted using the experimental research method, and the effects of the patterns were evaluated by examining the senses, concentration, performance, and speech of the subjects. Some biophilic design patterns, such as visual connection with nature, presence of water, and risk/peril, could effectively improve the visual, olfactory, tactile, and vestibular senses of children of two spectrums, and such effects on the senses improved the concentrations, children’s speech and mood. However, some patterns, such as ambiguity and mystery, the light and shadow game, and changes in levels, did not have positive impacts on children. The design of the pattern needs to keep the therapeutic zone away from the sensory interference of other zones. Otherwise, children’s sensory perception will be disturbed, and the treatment will not be effective. The results of the research indicate that due to the different effectiveness of sensory stimuli on children with autism, it is not possible to generalize the patterns to normal people and use biophilic landscape patterns for therapeutic purposes with autistic children. Rather, before employing the strategies, they need to be tested first, and then the models of the therapeutic landscape suitable for affected children need to be developed. The suitable space, the environment, and the landscape for autistic children are different from the ones that can be used for non-autistic children, and autistic children need their own appropriate space.

The first trace of the changed living structures caused by the evolution of the new world in the city has emerged in the separation between humans and the surrounding environment. Subsequently, art has become responsible for filling a part of this gap, especially in improving the quality of urban life regarding the connection between the dualities. In this case, murals are the most efficient urban art that deals with the public audience and is formed as an artwork in the city within the interaction between painting context conditions, the subjectivity and perception of the artist, and the audience’s understanding. Among the infinitely diverse topics of the motifs depending on the city walls, as a landscape foundation emphasizing the mentality of the audience community and influencing the thought and collective unconscious of the audiences, “nature” has been one of the major role players in the topic of murals. However, the position of nature and its relationship with the mentality and demands of citizens have not been explained accurately. Studies imply that after the decorative approach was elaborated given mural art practitioners, nature and its bases in the urban murals of Tehran, particularly in Vali-E-Asr Street, have been based on the decorative approach principles used in the exhibition of works. In this regard, nature has been shaped as an indicator of naturalistic lived experience in the minds of citizens beyond this interaction with the visual environment and being inspired by the context’s landscape identity.