فهرست مطالب مهرداد قیومی بیدهندی

Architectural historiography deals with understanding and explaining architectural practices (and their results and products) as they have been realized through history. To do this, the architectural historian should acquire a historical understanding of the knowledge on which the architectural practices had been based. According to a knowledge classification model proposed by Harry Collins, the sociologist of science, the concept of ‘somatic knowledge’, is a kind of tacit knowledge. This concept can be applied to architecture and regarded as a kind of knowledge upon which the architectural practice is based. In the historiography of somatic knowledge in architecture, obtaining historical evidence is the most crucial methodological obstacle; because this knowledge is inexplicable, and its evidence is not clear. Each piece of evidence can only be seen when the historian asks questions about it based on his/her preconceptions. Thus, the prior somatic knowledge acquired through practical architectural experience is highly likely to affect the discovery and interpretation of the evidence of historical somatic knowledge. The question is, therefore, about the ways in which this prior knowledge makes its marks. In this paper, an epistemological idea of the ‘Web of Belief’ is considered for answering this question. According to this idea, the architectural historian acquires new beliefs about the past agents’ somatic knowledge through three ways: recalling personal somatic memory, replicating the past somatic experiences, re-enacting them, and making inductive hypotheses based on his/her somatic expectation. When each of these newcomer beliefs enters the architectural historian’s web of belief, they may be confirmed by his/her prior somatic beliefs, may be rejected, or may turn into non-beliefs. The new belief intervenes in the historian’s understanding of historical practices if accepted in the architectural historian’s web of belief and given it a new coherence.

Among the scholars of Iranian architecture, some believe in a timeless “essence” as “Iranian Architecture” or “Islamic Architecture of Iran”. According to them, the essence has had various manifestations in different points of history. It can also have its contemporary manifestation if we try to identify and realize it, as they believe. Then we will have our own Persian, Islamic, and non-Western architecture in our time. What defines the essence are some “principles of architecture”. The principles differ by the scholars’ viewpoints; however, all of them are timeless principles and rules the observation of which can lead to an Iranian Islamic architecture suitable for Iranians spiritual, psychological, and physical needs and desires. Among the scholars, there are only three comprehensive viewpoints that are compiled and published: 1. Mohammad-Karim Pirnia’s “the Principles of Iranian Architecture”; 2. Ardalan and Bakhtiar’s “the Sense of Unity”; 3. Navaei and Haji-Qassemi’s “Khesht-o-Khiyāl”. A full analysis and critique of the first viewpoint was already published. In this article, we will analyze and criticize the two latter, both of them believe in an essence as “Islamic Architecture of Iran”. Reviewing and internal criticizing each viewpoint starts with explaining its goal and theoretical bases and continues by its principles. Then we will articulate the viewpoint in terms of ontological, epistemological, and practical/normative propositions. This will provide us with a site map of each viewpoint that will make a fair critique possible. The last part of each chapter, entitled “Challenges and Inconsistencies”, will be on an internal criticism on the viewpoint. In the conclusion, we will compare the two views and show that both of them are deeply related to “traditionalism”, and their main difference is due to their focus points: Ardalan and Bakhtiar focus on the symbolic language of architecture, while Navaei and Haji- Qassemi focus on the formal and physical aspects.

This paper attempts to extend Ladislav Kesner and Richard Elbridge's insights toward collectivist explanation in art historiography in response to Branko Mitrovic's critique in “Rage and Denials”. A counterexample situation in architectural historiography is propounded to elucidate how a collectivist explanation in a moderate realist form is not only apt but, in some cases, inevitable. It relies on our primary claim, the possibility of some non-essentialist, non-ideological, non-deterministic and non-egocentric collectivist explanations, regarding the main faults assigned to collectivist stances in art historiography by Branko Mitrovic. The Counterexample situation explains the possible actions not implemented and decisions not taken in designing a building. In addition to the choices that led to the final formulation of the artwork, one must also consider the other options available, those possible choices that were left out, to clarify feasible limitations and, conversely, the choices that led to the emergence of the work. Even considering that all final decisions merely result from chemical interactions in actors' brains, one cannot judge alternative options the same way, some of which did not even occur in the artist's mind or the network of agents involved. The repetition of dismissing these alternative options during a long-durée, thus the formation of a pattern, cannot be explained by the individualistic stance proposed by Mitrovic.

In the world that is depicted by Ferdowsi in Shahnama, architecture (building a placefor human’s living) has a paramount position. In this world, architecture is of two kinds: thearchitecture that has its roots in art, and the architecture that stems from magic. The meaning of art(hunar) in Shahnama is different from its meaning today. Art in Shahnama has a divine origin andis connected with goodness and virtue. Contrasted to art, is magic which is related to indecent andevil. Architecture based on art has heavenly attributes: it is enchanting and eternal; Architecture ofmagic has infernal attributes and thus, is not proper for the living of humans and the good people.Engaging in “the architecture of art” is the best path for the charismatic kings to follow; it isthrough such art that they display their divine grace and decency, and manage to promote abadani(prosperity) and goodness in the world. Some of these kings, following the message of the divinemessenger, build eternal cities which is home to those eternal human beings who are supposed tobe the future saviors of the world. In Shahnama’s narration of Iranian history, architecture and arthave a declining trend in the course of time. At the beginning of time, in the era of the first fourking-prophets, art is related with God’s revelations, and art practitioners learn about art throughthe agency of the divine messengers, which later on they spread and teach to others. But with thefalling of Jamshid and rise of Zahhak “all virtue despises, and magic esteems” and that is whenwe witness the gradual diminishing of the presence, number, and impact of charismatic humanbeings enjoyed by the divine grace. Although the charismatic human beings are still among peopleand engage in eternal art, their association with the divine in learning and teaching art is not aspowerful and abundant as it used to be. Even when the kings set off to build cities and sacredconstructions, it’s no more based on divine messages, but only based on the skill and knowledgeof the world’s best artists and scholars.Architecture in Shahnama covers that which is in theheavens and those residing in it to the architecture on the earth or even below, and those whojoined it. Architecture in Shahnama is both apparent and hidden, visible and invisible, good andbad, heavenly and devilish. The eternal architecture gets built by artists and charismatics, and themagical architecture gets built by the vicious and devils.

The concept of ‘tacit knowledge,’ first introduced by Michael Polanyi in the mid-twentieth century, has been used in several academic fields and developed in some approaches. However, in architectural theory, it has maintained its commitment to Polanyi’s original definition as a type of mysterious knowledge on which designers work. This article aims to apply one of the developed tacit knowledge approaches to architecture and examine its potentials and limitations. This approach is of Harry Collins in the field of sociology of science, as it is represented in some of his latest written works. Knowledge is transmittable based on Collins’ model. The one that can be transmitted through physical means is called explicit knowledge, while tacit knowledge is the knowledge that cannot be explicated or is not explicated and can only be transmitted through hanging around with others who already have it. There are three types of tacit knowledge. The first type is called “the Relational Tacit Knowledge,” which includes the knowledge remaining unspoken due to some social contingencies. The second type is “the Somatic Tacit Knowledge,” inscribed in the human body and brain’s natural substance. The third type is “the Collective Tacit Knowledge,” which is stored in the society and can be transmitted through sustained living in it.Applying this model to architecture, the transmittable part of architectural knowledge divides into two parts: explicit and tacit knowledge. The architectural tacit knowledge involves the somatic and the collective types. The architectural somatic knowledge is stored in the architect’s body and brain and can be transmitted to him/ her through individual contact with the other agents who have it. However, it can also be acquired through practical experience, try and error, and so on, without having any human sender. Architectural collective knowledge is the knowledge that is mostly stored in the collective memory of three groups: the colleagues group, the architectural community, and the society. It includes these groups members’ expectations and their values about pleasant and desirable architectural practices. Nonetheless, it seems that architectural practice is based on some kinds of tacit knowledge which are neither somatic nor collective. This issue makes this question still open: Is architectural tacit knowledge only composed of somatic and collective types? If it is not, which theoretical basis can be used for discerning the other types/ aspects of architectural tacit knowledge.

While in contemporary Iran, educated architects are titled muhandis (engineer) or muhandis-i mi’mār (architectural engineer), in Europe where is the origin of modern Iranian architectural education, it is not common to title architects as such at all. The same title in Persian, muhandis, is commonly used to address graduates in other technical disciplines (mechanic engineer, civil engineer, etc.). Having the same signifier for different signifieds implies that there is some common cultural aspect to the matter. This article aims to study the transformation of the concept of muhandis in the first half of the Qajar period, especially the Fath-Ali-Shah’s reign, through a conceptual history approach and by taking an interpretive-historical method. The study suggests that in the early Qajar period, muhandis started to denote a person less concerned with architecture but more concerned with surveying and fortification. Even though in pre-modern Iran eminent experts in other fields concerned with handasa (geometry) used to be called muhandis (a person who knows geometry) too, in this period, the term chiefly denoted the Iranian architects and engineers who had been educated in Europe. Gradually, the architecture of non-military buildings was delegated to this latter group of muhandiss, which implies that they were the transmitters of European architecture to Iran too.

Among the scholars of Iranian architecture, some believe in a timeless “essence” as “Iranian Architecture” or “Islamic Architecture of Iran”. According to them, the essence has had various manifestations in different points of history. It can also have its contemporary manifestation if we try to identify and realize it, as they believe. Then we will have our own Persian, Islamic, and non-Western architecture in our time. What defines the essence are some “principles of architecture”. The principles differ by the scholars’ viewpoints; however, all of them are timeless principles and rules the observation of which can lead to an Iranian Islamic architecture suitable for Iranians spiritual, psychological, and physical needs and desires. Among the scholars, there are only three comprehensive viewpoints that are compiled and published: 1. Mohammad-Karim Pirnia’s “the Principles of Iranian Architecture”; 2. Ardalan and Bakhtiar’s “the Sense of Unity”; 3. Navaei and Haji-Qassemi’s “Khesht-o-Khiyāl”. A full analysis and critique of the first viewpoint was already published. In this article, we will analyze and criticize the two latter, both of them believe in an essence as “Islamic Architecture of Iran”. Reviewing and internal criticizing each viewpoint starts with explaining its goal and theoretical bases and continues by its principles. Then we will articulate the viewpoint in terms of ontological, epistemological, and practical/normative propositions. This will provide us with a site map of each viewpoint that will make a fair critique possible. The last part of each chapter, entitled “Challenges and Inconsistencies”, will be on an internal criticism on the viewpoint. In the conclusion, we will compare the two views and show that both of them are deeply related to “traditionalism”, and their main difference is due to their focus points: Ardalan and Bakhtiar focus on the symbolic language of architecture, while Navaei and Haji- Qassemi focus on the formal and physical aspects.

This paper reviews the three key periods of architectural criticism in the West: the emergence of architectural criticism in the Age of Enlightenment, its development, and its flourish and decline. It highlights French art criticism as the birthplace of architectural criticism, initially containing extensive, illustrated descriptions of significant works for students. It then moved on to the proliferation of knowledge and education the public taste as its goals. Over decades, architectural criticism alternated between serving the interests of capitalism and the construction industry and socio-political activism. With the emergence of academic criticism in American universities, architectural criticism fundamentally transformed into a self-referential and fell into decline.

One of the ways of studying architecture in the premodern Islamic world is to approach it epistemically, especially with regard to its relationship with the formal sciences. Since the very beginning of the intellectual movement in the mid-second century AH/eighth century AD, Muslim philosophers paid attention to the classification of sciences. In this article, we examine the most important primary sources on science classification in the first phase of the history of science in the Islamic world, that is, from the mid-second/eighth century to the fifth/eleventh century, with an emphasis on Fārābi’s works. Using the techniques of “conceptual history”, we trace the concept of architecture in the sources—regardless of its different manifestations as in words, terms, or systems of classification -̶ to identify its position in relation to other sciences. For this purpose, after a brief historical survey and introducing our sources that are six primary books written in the first Islamic centuries we observe the different manifestations of the concept of architecture. The most straightforward word in the conceptual field of architecture found in the sources is ṣināʿat al-bināʾ (the art/craft of building). This term mostly appears in Fārābi’s and Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’s works in the field of civil practical arts/crafts in relation to other sciences and arts/crafts. Fārābi also addresses another art/craft in the conceptual field of architecture as ṣināʿat al-riʾāsat al-bināʾ and describes its relation to ṣināʿa al-bināʾ. Some layers and parts of architecture are also found in sciences such as the al-ʿilm al-ḥiyal, al-ʿilm al-masāḥah, and al-ʿilm al-naql al-miyāh. After Ikhwān, consideration of arts/crafts including architecture gradually declined in the works of Muslim philosophers.

Dār al-Funūn School was established in the first half of 1850s, under Nāsir al-Dīn Shāh’s rule and by the patronage of his chancellor Mirzā Taqī-khān Amīr Kabīr. Amīr Kabīr was also the patron of the school building, which its construction began in 1850. Its designer was Mīrzā Rizā Muhandis-Bāshī, who had studied engineering in Royal Military Academy at London. The school’s master builder was Muhammad-Taqi Khān Miʻmār-Bāshī. Amīr Kabīr himself and Bahrām Mīrzā Mu‘izz-al-Dawla supervised the construction of the building. A part of building opened in 1852, just a few days after Amir’s deposal, although it was not totally finished until 1853. However, the building that we know today as Dār al-Funūn was constructed in Pahlavi era. There is almost no important material evidence from the Qajar building, but there are some imagery and written evidences. The Dār al-Funūn building is remained unknown because of some inaccuracy in recognition of photos and their positions, and some changes in the building during the very Qajar era. Our objective is to recognize the school’s architecture and the quality of its probable changes in Qajar period, which is dealt with validation of the documents, recognition of the building physical properties, resolving the ambiguities, lighting up the building changes and evolutions, and determining their dates. According to formal chronicles, the school was opened on 5th Rabi’ I, 1268 AH (Dec. 29, 1851), when Amīr Kabīr was exiled (about two weeks before his murder on Jan. 10, 1852). There are some information in the textual sources including Amir’s letters and the government’s formal newspaper; however, there are no evidence of the school in the two major formal documents that was published about one year after the opening of the school. These are the oldest visual document of the school is August Karl Krziž’s Map of Tehran (Dec. 1858), and the Statistics Account of Tehran. The second map of Tehran in that period is ‘Abd al-Ghaffār’s Map (Aug. 1891). There are also several photos and gravures of the school in Gulistān Archive (Golestan Palace Museum), as well as other archives that reveal some aspects of the school’s architecture. We will show that the Qajar Dār al-Funūn had two parts: the old building and the new one. The old building is the one built in Amīr Kabīr’s period. It was designed by Mīrzā Rizā Muhandis, and was constructed by Muhammad Taqī-khān Miʽmār-bāshī in 1850 and opened in 1852. In 1870s, some of the court members decided to make some changes in the building, which were concentrated on the courtyard facades and the entrance. The designer of the changes was Mīrzā ʽAbbās Muhandis (Mīrzā Rizā’s son) and the constructer was Muhammad Ibrāhim-khān Miʽmār-bāshī (Muhammad Taqī-khān’s son). Between 1858 and 1892, the school was developed by adding a new building at the north side of the old one and at the west side of the telegraph office. The new building was called as “the School of Musics” and “the New School of Dār al-Funūn”. In the early Pahlavi era, both buildings were destroyed and replaced by a modern building designed by the Georgian architect Nikolai Lvovich Markov (1882-1957). This is the building, which is known now as Dār al-Funūn High School today.

Written sources on Iranian pre-modern architecture in Islamic middle ages are  very scarce. The material that is scattered in literary and historic texts is normally limited to monumental architecture, and mostly related to the architectural works and not to the process and the agents. Moreover, there is not much material on people's and vernacular architecture. However, there are surviving documents related to the Iranian's general life and social interactions which are full of architectural information. Over millennia, ordinary people have built thousands of buildings and villages. They also had to make written records for various social matters; especially when religion encouraged them to keep written records: in waqf (Islamic endowment), inheritance and trades. Waqf, inheritance and trade documens are often ignored but information-rich Iranian architecture, especially the people's architecture. Some of these documents, especially the royal and court documents are kept in governmental archives; but thousands of documents are in the possession of individuals, families and sometimes private archives. One example of these is the family documents collection of the Gorgāni (Estarabadi) families. This article is written based on two documents form the Estarabad family collection using the descriptive-analytical method. In this article we introduce two documents, going back to the end of the Qajar era, both of which are related to the construction of baths in two villages of Ganareh and Qoroq, located in Estarabad. Haj Mohammad Mehdi Kabir, one of the important merchants of the city of Estarabad, decided to build baths in two villages which probably belonged to him family in 1916. He employed builders and architects and made a contract with them. The dates of the two documents are one month and five days apart. The document texts and even their paper type are similar. From the handwritings it can be surmised that the scribe is the same for both document. The architect for the Ganareh bath is Ostad Hossein Banna and the architect for the Qoroq is Aqa Seyyed Mohammad Jafar Banna. It is remarkable that both of these architects are from Tehran. The length and remuneration terms for both the contracts are the same. Various parts and space units (compartments) of the bath as well as some of their physical features are mentioned in these documents. Some information can be also inferred with regards to the general composition of the bath spaces. The description of these spaces are nearly similar and have the same dimensions. Like most other historical texts, these documents give more information between their lines. For example, the documents do not give a description of each of the places they name. It is apparent that merely using the name of spaces such as central courtyard or platform was enough to let the patron, the architect and the witnesses know what the description is and how it should look physically. Or for example, there are no mentions of innovations by the architects. It was not the job of the architects to innovate and to use these innovations in constructing baths for fame in Estarabad, Tehran, Iran or the world. Their intention was to serve; their intention was to erect bath houses which were functional for the Qoroq and Ganareh villages to the best of their ability and meet the physical and emotional needs of the people.

ʿIlm-i ʿUqūd-i Abnīyih first time is named in ʾIrshād al-Qāṣid from Ibn al-Akfānī; but reflection on primary sources shows this science has older antecedent. There is no text in this science from Islamic period; but be said Ibn al-Haytham and Karajī had have compilations in this science. Primary sources in science classification in Islamic world help us to obtain the clearer concept from this science. Search in this texts shows ʿIlm-i ʿUqūd-i Abnīyih was main science connected to architecture in Islamic sciences. This research defines ʿIlm-i ʿUqūd-i Abnīyih was lower than theoretical geometry and upper than practical geometry.

The common division in Iranian architectural history to two separate periods - pre-Islamic and Islamic - which was once efficient, has gradually lost its motivating power. Such a cliché had consequences including disregarding the architecture of the very transitional era from the late Sassanid to the early Islamic period. Understanding the real changes, evolutions, breaks, and continuity in the two sides of the supposed historical border requires more inquiry and research; a research that should begin with eliminating the border. Human beings think about architecture before, during, and after practicing it. They speak about it; and their words are evidences of their understanding of architecture. The concept of “architecture” is not constant and timeless. It changes during history; and its changes reveal themselves in the language. In this article, after introducing “conceptual history” and its benefits for Iranian architectural studies, we study the conceptual history of the architecture of the transitional era. We take lexical and etimological methods in defining semantic fields and categories of architecture in the era as a way toward understanding the cultural changes and evolutions of architecture. Our primary sources are in three languages: Pahlavi (Middle Persian), Persian (New Persian/ Dari), and Arabic. By the conceptual history of architecture of the transitional era from the late Sassanid to the early Islamic period, we will show that the concept of architecture in the era revealed in the term ābādāni, did not bear any radical changes. Of course the concept of architecture as ābādāni is far from the modern concept of architecture, despite including it.

The School of Architecture is the second modern school of architecture launched in 1960 after the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran and simultaneous with the founding of Iranian National University. It plays a crucial role in the history of architectural education in Iran.
This paper presents an impartial account of the evolution of the most important course delivered in this school architectural design. Its sources of information include both existing documents and extensive interviews. The first faculty members of the school were architects who had been initially trained in the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran and had subsequently completed their studies in University of
Rome. Their method of architectural education was mainly based on the Parisian Beaux Arts method adjusted to the National University system. From its third year of operation, the architectural design methodology was subject to drastic modifications by new professors who gradually joined the faculty. By the end of 1960s, a new architectural education program was established giving the School its individual character and marking the end of its evolution phase.

In the West, the history of writing on art goes back to the classical antiquity but writing art history began with Giorgio Vasari’s 16th-century pioneering work on the artists’ biographies. In the present article, the authors follow the preliminary conditions that led to the birth and development of art history in the western world. The first important comparison is between the birth time of art history’s writing in the West and in the Iranian world, and the second is related to the axis on which art histories in the two worlds have been organized. We know that the first art histories in Europe were organized on the basis of artists’ lives. This pattern remained as the dominant model of art history for many centuries. Thinking on the neglected dimensions of art in this pattern led some of the art historians to new patterns of art history, including the idea of “art history without names”. On the other hand, in Iran, a genre of writing that can be called a kind of art history began in 10th AH/16th AD century. Art historiography in Iran was in the form of adab (principles) treatises, tadhkirahs (biographies) and prefaces to albums of calligraphies and miniatures. Most of these works were organized on the basis of persons, especially artists. Warp and woof of the art history in these treatises is a network consisted of the longitudinal axes of master-apprentice chains and the transverse axes of contemporary apprentices of each master. Art critique, explanation of art principles, and some marginal notes on the social and cultural context complete this network. One can find some resemblances between these early art historical texts in the two European and Iranian worlds. The most important resemblance is their organization on the basis of artists. However, they have many radical differences rooted in their different view of the world, human being, art, past and present.

Khaniqah in the history of Iran، especially in pre-Safavid era، was among the most frequent building types. Nevertheless what we know about its architecture is almost nothing. Identifying the khaniqah architecture requires a vast multi-disciplinary research، which would cover all of the Islamic lands through all of the periods of their histories، based on the most related Arabic، Persian، and Turkish primary sources and also the all remained relics of Sufi and religious architecture. This research is about the Khaniqah architecture in its formation phase، in the first Islamic centuries in its birthplace Khurasan (in Rob’e-i Nishapur). Since the second (AH) / eighth (AD) century، Sufis gradually inhabited in buildings other than mosques. It was about the fifth (AH) / eleventh (AD) century that a certain building type dedicated to Sufis was called “khaniqah”. The khaniqah’s content، or its organization، was established by the fifth century Sufi saint Abu-Saeid Abul-Khayr in Khurasan. This organization had some basic elements: from human elements to ritual and ethics. Khaniqah contained various functions: from public functions، such as preaching sessions، to private ones، such as isolation for worship and Sufis ceremonial dance (samā’). As the khaniqah organization، khaniqah building had a variety of open، semi-open، and closed spaces. The open spaces − court and roof − was dedicated to the public functions; the closed spaces − gathering hall (jamā’t-khāna)، cells (hujras)، and the sheikh’s cell (sawma’a) – to the private functions. The semi-open spaces – iwan (suffa) and arcade (riwāq) – were used for semi-private or semi-public functions. The gathering hall، as required by its functions، was a domed hall. The court was located in the center of khaniqah with an iwan in one side (usualy opposite to the court entrance). The gathering hall had access to the court، directly or through the iwan. The cells were located around the court (in its four، three، or two sides) and the entrance was in the middle of one side.

Mohammad-Karim Pirnia، one of the most prominent scholars of the history of Iranian architecture، has recorded two major achievements: the principles of Iranian architecture and the stylistics of Iranian architecture. In this article we will discuss his suggested principles for Iranian architecture. For this purpose، we will first show how his five principles have evolved and completed through time. Then we will refer to his words about each of the principles we have gathered from the original source but widely spread and will present them in an integrated and coherent form. In another section of the article، we will deliberate upon the entirety of these principles and evaluate their worthiness in characterizing Iranian architecture. We will strive to study and review Pirnia’s motivations for proposing them، their underlying assumptions، and their tacit implications. In the end we will show that the current order and content of these principles have both internal and external dimensions whose appearance was necessitated by his time. One may argue that such principles are no longer suitable or credible for contemporary Iranian architecture. However reviewing the internal dimension of these principles is a valuable element for identifying and understanding the Iranian architecture in the context of the Iranian culture. In this case، we will be able to reread Pirnia’s principles and use them to serve as vehicle for improvement of research on the history of Iranian architecture and its development.

Many of Iranian architectural works have been demolished over time. Moreover, there are some “types” of buildings that were almost completely demolished and became extinct. Khaneqah is one of these types. As stated in historic Persian and Arabic texts, before Safavid era there have many khaneqahs in Iranian cities and towns, even there have been many cities with more than one khaneqah. Safavids, who originated from the Safavid Sufi Order destroyed, deformed or at least renamed most of khaneqahs that belonged to non-Safavid or non-Shiite Sufi orders. Founding a khaneqah, which was known as an important pious and religious practice gradually declined and from tenth century AH/ sixteenth century AD onwards, khaneqah’s architecture almost faded away. Nowadays, Iranians and Iranian architectural historians have no clear image or idea about khaneqah’s formation, configuration, and architectural characteristics. Therefore they are unable to distinguish ruins of a building that someday might have been a khaneqah. Identifying the characteristics of khaneqah can be carried out using several sources, including historic texts, Islamic literature, studying the buildings that are known as khaneqah, and finally, studying the buildings that are known as hosseyniyyeh, mosque, mausoleum, or madrasa, but to the scholars their types are under debate. Roshtkhār monument is a prominent example of such buildings. On the Zaveh-Khāf road in Khorasan, there are some ruins of a building known as Roshtkhār Friday Mosque. This paper will examine the architecture of the monument on the basis of archeological findings and also recent findings about khaneqah architectural characteristics in Persian literature in early Islamic centuries. The ruins of Roshtkhār building are located in the suburb of the new Roshtkhār town; however recent archaeological excavations show that the building was someday located inside the town or on its west side. The building consists of a portal, a court with some rooms around it, an Iwan, and a domed hall. The Iwan has the domed hall on one side and the ruins of an unknown space (probably a second domed hall) on the other side. Date of the building is under debate; but on the basis of archaeological findings and comparing the scholars’ dating, we will show that the construction of the building dates back to eleventh century AD, with an important restoration including a dated thuluth inscription in fifteenth century AD. The building used to be called as khaneqah before it was registered in the Iran’s National Registry of Architectural Heritage in 1976; however, its type has been under debate. None of the scholars have clarified their criteria used to identify the type of this building. Therefore, we should take another way to identify its type: deliberating the building compatibility with khaneqahs’ physical configuration and functional requirements. In this paper we examine the type of this building on the basis of the criteria that we achieved in another research about khaneqah architecture and will show that the building almost completely corresponds to khaneqah architectural characteristics. So it is a khaneqah rather than a Friday mosque.

The scholars of pre-modern Iranian art have been confronted with a basic problem: can one talk about an aesthetic of pre-modern Iranian culture? One way to approach the privileged aesthetics in any era is studying the basic concepts of art in its written sources. Naqsh (pattern) is one of the most important concepts in pre-modern Iranian culture and all the arts deal with it. Rumi’s Mathnawi is among the most important written sources of Iranian culture: it is not only a manifestation of its contemporary culture، but has also affected the Persian and Persianate culture of its period and the next periods so far. As the subject of the present research، Mathnawi is full of explicit and implicit connotations to the patterns، forms، images، and meanings in various artifacts and arts. Therefore، the concept of naqsh is one of the basic doors which opens to the aesthetics of Mathnawi. In Mathnawi، naqsh has a dual meaning: one about the works of painting; the other as a synonym of the concept of surat (form). However، Rumi by the both meanings invites the reader to pass from the realm of manifests and forms to the realm of transcendental meaning. It is the very invitation from the pattern to the beyond of pattern that forms the heart of Rumi’s aesthetics.

Architecture is a product of the culture of society rather than being a product of the decision of a team or of a person. To obscure the physical form and objective of architecture and to neglect cultural results lead to a superficiality understanding of architectural history. Cultural approach to history and architectural history will throw light on the study of the architectural history of Iran and enlighten some dark corners in the field of history. In the first step the authors will introduce the approach to cultural history by surveying the evolution of this approach and development. After this survey and introduction, the common features of all kinds of cultural history are considered. Then the feasibility of applying this approach to the architectural history of Iran is evaluated. The last section of this paper contains some suggestions for studying the cultural history of Iranian architecture. The Authors’ method in this paper is to study the scientific system of history and architectural history.

Rumi was not an architect or architectural theorician. However in his Mathnawi، he dealt in architecture، explicitly or implicitly، intentionally or unintentionally. It can be seen in Mathnawi in diferrent levels: when he talks about the built environment in which he used to live; when he uses architecture elements and spaces as figure of speech; when he borrows an architectural metaphor in talking about the universe; when he proposes general theories which can be applied to architecture too; and finally when he uses architecture as a vehicle for the remembrance of God (zikr). In this article we try to understand the status of architecture in Mathnawi through the text itself. We do this in the mentioned levels، on these topics: the relation between architecture، art، and craft; architecture as revealed in Mathnawi language; the relation between architects and imagination; construction versus destruction; material and immaterial charachteristics of ideal space; and architecture as a vehicle for the remembrance of God.

After about five centuries from the Seljuqs’ period, Isfahan was again picked up as the capital by Shah Abbas I Safavid in the early seventeenth century. Ruling an arid land such Iran without a serious attention to water management system was really impossible. The water management system was more important for Shah Abbas because of his vision about the new capital of his empire and the important role of water order in it. He had to manage the city’s water, both for urban and agricultural uses, so to be proper for the city’s explosive growth in expansion and population, and also for his vision and power. Reading Safavid Isfahan from its water management system viewpoint is one of the most important ways in understanding the city. In this article we do it by an anthropological approach and interpretive-historical method. In the water management system of Safavid Isfahan, they allow the mādis (manmade streams) to pass through the city on the basis of certain rules. They used the streams both for consumptions and in urban spaces, by the two main mādis called Fadan and Farshādi, and then convey the water to the suburb. Among the mādis in the city, the city itself had share only in the water of Fadan mādi. The other mādis, having no benefit for the city, passed it and flowed into the farmlands nearby. The water distribution system which ruled over Zāyandeh River and the mādis was also valid in the city water system; in Summer the water was reserved for agricultural lands in the suburb and only occasionally was run through the city streams. Such an achievement was only possible by a considered hydraulic and civil engineering (which its study is not in the scope of this article), by water rights and distribution system and careful supervision proper to the needs, weather and juridical laws. Such a management had also economical aspects, which were managed by selling and consecrating water according to Islamic jurisprudence. Selling water was among the major income resources of the Safavid court. Depending on the size of all owners’ properties, and depending on the number of times that they made use of water in a month, they paid annually. The water management organization was also important. The importance of water system in the city management required a perfect and strict supervision; so the water bailiff (mirāb) was a considerable office in the Safavid court; to the extent that the water bailiff of the Capital Isfahan was once the commander-in-chief of the Khorasan Province as well and sometimes the king himself supervised the system. The waning of the Safavids was also along with, or followed by, the propagation of corruption in water system management. For example, the tourists’ accounts in the reign of Shah Suleiman testify the propagation of oppression and corruption among water bailiffs, so that the water bailiffs and their assistants usually take huge bribes from the peasants.