هادی ندیمی

In the simplest definition, a caravanserai is a building that accommodates a caravan. Caravanserai is one of the most important inheritages of Iranian architecture, whose emergence in The Land of Iran has begun for many years due to its location on the East-West Commercial Highway and commercial boom, and other factors such as political, economic, military, religious and social have played a role in its development. During the Safavid era, along with the repair and construction of roads and the strengthening of the country's road network, much attention was also paid to the construction of caravan buildings. In a general classification, caravanserais are placed in two groups: suburban and inner city. Suburban caravanserais are one of the important construction elements in the communication ways of the Islamic era. Today, the margins of the roads of this land are filled with such valuable buildings have lost their former role with the emergence of modernism, changes in transportation and trade systems and they are at risk of erosion and destruction due to lack of adequate care. Therefore, recognizing this part of Iranian architecture provides the possibility of linking the present human being with the unrepeatable legacy of the past and re-educating from the precious experiences of the predecessors. In researches on the recognition of caravanserais, more attention has been paid to the physical aspects. For example, Mohammad Yousef Kiani and Wolfram Clais have discussed the climatic-physical typology, shape classification, determining the characteristics of caravanserais and introducing Iranian caravanserais by providing visual documents. Maxim Siro also studied the old roads, the buildings that were formed around them and the climatic-functional typology and introduced each of these buildings by providing documents, documents and a brief description. While the architectural values of caravanserais go back to its roots in the political, cultural and social beliefs of this land. Therefore, the present study aimed to explain socio-political values as an important part of non- Physical values of caravanserais in order to recognize and protect these buildings and it has done by asking the question of what socio-political values can be recall in suburban caravanserai of the central plateau of Iran, especially in the Safavid era?. This research is qualitative-historical in terms of nature. In this article, according to the nature of the research, the integrated research method has been used. This means that in the first stage, which aims to explain the meaning and concept of value in human sciences, the descriptive-analytical research method has been used. Therefore, first, qualitative data about value issues are extracted, inferred and classified using written library document resources in the field of humanities and the opinions of experts in these field. In the next stage, which aims to explain political-social values, with a descriptive-historical method, first to collect information based on library sources and researches of late researchers, as well as visual and written documents left from the past such as travelogues, as well as field observations, then the obtained information is analyzed by inductive reasoning method and the different aspects of the political-social values of the caravanserais are explained and a conclusion is made. Finally, based on these studies, the political values of caravanserais based on the levels of political values of Almond et al., in three levels, were explained, which include: system (system maintenance and adaptability), process (effective participation in political events, compliance and support and justice) and policy making (quantitative and qualitative welfare, individual security) and nationalism and freedom). Also, social values of these buildings, based on Schwartz's theory, have been presented based on five concepts of security, tradition, conformity, altruism and redemption.

Although the research process in many architectural topics involves approaches and methods used in the social sciences and humanities, advancing through the architectural research process by the application of these approaches and methods has been poorly studied. This article aims to define question-based research in architecture and introduce its scope, types, and processes. It is an interdisciplinary research in which the research strategies of the social sciences and humanities are applied. This article employs the classification strategy to study and analyze a selection of doctoral dissertations in architecture from worldwide top-ranked universities. The results demonstrate that question-based research advances by developing a question rather than hypothesizing, i.e., asking about a contemporary or historical phenomenon or a relatively unknown or disorganized body of knowledge that is obscure to the researcher. There are three types of question-based research topics in terms of the researcher’s relation to the questioned phenomenon: a topic relating to the past requiring examining historical data; a contemporary problem requiring data analysis from field research; or an architectural topic requiring investigation of both historical and modern conditions. The results of question-based research are mostly in the form of an extensive description or a coherent narrative.

This research, concerning the effective presence of the concept of affordance in contemporary architectural discourse, addresses the overemphasis placed on practical aspects of the concept of affordance and the ignorance of theoretical thinking about this concept and the inevitable conceptual evolutions which emerge. Consequently, the concept of constraint is going to be introduced and clarified while providing a theoretical basis in reference to a more developed understanding of the concept of affordance in architecture. The research concentrates on explaining a clear ontology and introducing a conceptual structure for the concept of constraint, which leads to a comprehensive typology of architectural constraints. This research is conducted through a qualitative approach and relies on the most recent scientific theories to develop a compatible concept of affordance in architecture. Furthermore, based on logical thinking and analytical methods the concept of constraint is going to be developed. At the first step the concept of affordance is developed based on the Heideggerian point of view. Consequently, a theoretical basis is established to introduce and clarify the concept of constraint through developing the concept of niche into architectural interaction field. (A.I.F). Then a three-dimensional conceptual structure based on the origin, function and domain of the architectural constraints is organized. The results of this research provide the basic theoretical knowledge required to have a deeper understanding of the two fundamental concepts of contemporary architectural discourse: affordance and constraint. The study confirms the undeniable essential role of constraint in the perception and creation of architecture. Constraints are the value of the architectural characters, being put by the members of A.I. F. Constraints guarantee the affordances architectural work is going to afford. Consequently, they guarantee the meaning and the truth of architecture. Thinking on constraint brings about the potential to prove a new perspective in theoretical aspects of architectural knowledge and consequently affects the practice of architecture.

The Sadrian School has a high potentiality to answer many questions in the field of architecture. This article tries to explain architect's activity based on the Sadrian School. The method of research is to analyze, interpret and infer from Mulla Sadra's thoughts to explain the architect's activities in different aspects. Architect's activity is one of the three basic works, which meets the fundamental need for a place to live in different levels. Therefore, a system of concepts related to the architect from craft and purpose, encompassment and disposition, order and cause, beauty and love are extracted from Mulla Sadra's words and discussed.The architect as a purposeful creator has imaginal and intellectual forms of the life of the man and his acts. He tries to provide a place for living as a platform for doing different activities by the disposition of the environment and changing dimensions and relationships in nature. The architect according to his/her existential level encompasses the world and recognizes causes and effects in the perfect system of existence. By dispositioning the environment in order to make a place for human life, he/she actualizes an order in nature that becomes the ground for humans and other beings to reach their desired perfection. By perceiving beauty and choosing the beloved, he regulates his intrinsic faculties. Through this inner order, the architect disposes and changes the world, and his activity becomes the manifestation of the beloved's perfect form, desirable attributes and actions.

Pilgrimage architecture is a significant kind of ceremonial and religious architecture. Concentrating on the architecture of a pilgrimage site, particularly the shrines and tombs of the Ahl al-Bayt (as), pilgrimage architecture may be studied from an interdisciplinary viewpoint. This article attempts to examine the significance of shrines architecture due to pilgrimage rituals by posing the question: “How does the tradition of pilgrimage affect the architecture of shrines?” with utmost focus on the concept of “pre-threshold” in the interaction of “pilgrimage” and “architecture.” This article aims to convey the physical and architectural manifestations of pilgrimage on the entries or architectural pre-thresholds of the Razavi Shrine. The historical, patrimonial, and architectural data was analyzed from the perspectives of cultural studies and architectural anthropology. We found the physical-semantic impacts that the architecture of the Shrine’s entrances (pre-threshold stage) gets from the tradition of pilgrimage and rituals etiquettes (intention, salutation, and permission to enter) in the form of a continuous chain of architectural spaces in the entrances (doors, halls, courtyards)

To build, is one of the most used words and the most fundamental actions in architecture and human life. The semantic extension of this word and its use in various fields indicate that it has a richness and fertility in the Persian literature. Reflection on the meaning and origin of "building" could connect us to an original and generator source, so that the plurality of meanings in a coherent system could achieve what the essence of architecture is in search of it; and provide qualities or criteria for identifying and evaluating good architecture. Research Question: To achieve the goal, two main questions of the research, can be formulated as follows: 1) What is the relation between building and architecture? 2) How can semantics of building represents the qualities of good architecture? Research

This research is qualitative in terms of approach. The research method is descriptive-analytical based on philology and logical reasoning. In the first part of the paper, which is descriptive, it has been attempted to clarify the various meanings of building and the historical evolution of its meaning, by using Persian lexicons and etymological dictionaries. In the second part, which is analytical and argumentative, it has been attempted to infer the qualities and components of good architecture, through reflecting on the meanings and origin of the word “building” and analyzing its explicit and implicit concepts.

According to the synchronic and diachronic semantics of building, it can be briefly defined as "preparing the universe through composition-reconciliation, for human perfection" in which, preparing, refers to "what", composition- reconciliation, refers to "how", and human perfection, refers to "why" of building. Building (to build) takes place in two different areas (external and internal) that are interconnected: only one can build the world who is built (ready/prepared); on the other hand, only a built (prepared) world can helps building human beings. These two areas of building, form a transcendental cycle, in which each one transcends the other. The multiple meanings of building, are the aspects and examples of a unique affair, and therefore, building (to build) is a semantic homonym and is an integrated and unified matter. The compositional feature of building -which leads to making peace, accordance, adaptability, fitness, and sufficiency- is the most fundamental aspect of building that has been neglected in the contemporary architecture. On the other hand, the end of building, which is preparation for human perfection, is another neglected matter in the contemporary era. Since architecture is one of the fields of building, it must be matched with it and the limits of building must be applied in architecture as well. Today's common notion of building, is limited to creation, transformation, and change, none of which is good in itself. While reflecting on the comprehensive and complete meaning of building, gives us an image that includes various existential and value attributes that could correctly limit building (in its common sense) and thus could transcend it. Building, in its complete sense of the word, is closely related to good architecture, and its meanings and implications reflect the qualities/criteria of good architecture, including: moderation/balance, order, consistency, proportion, coherence, harmony, sufficiency, establishment, and philanthropy.

Widely interpreted through different architectural discourses, form has emerged as a dynamic and slippery concept. Aiming at a rethinking of the concept in contemporary architectural discourse, the present paper explains theoretical bases and conceptual framework of considering form as an affordance. In order to do so, the paper starts with exploring some transforming influences on the contemporary concept of form, and moves on to introduce affordance as an interpretation of form corresponding the above influences. It then expands on the concept of affordance in order to explain some conceptual evolutions of its presence in the architectural discourse.
The paper ascertains a key role for the concept of meaning in rethinking form, and that with the introduction of affordance in architecture’s conceptual constellation comes a clarification of the meaning, providing responses to two key problems of meaning, namely, interactions between the subject and the object, and having a holistic view. This will result in a new understanding of the physical and the functional, aspect of architecture making way to go beyond their perceived schism. It is owing to drawing up new concepts of affordance, and the arousal of new concerns and considerations in architectural thought. Attempts are made here, therefore, to introduce concepts of action field, affordance layers, affordance domain, affordance quality, and affordance polarity, each reflecting the recent developments in architectural thought encountering the concept of affordance.

One of the concepts discussed in architecture is that of ‘The Void’, with Christopher Alexander being one of the proponents. He does this through three associated concepts, namely, the more explicit ‘The Great Void’, and ‘Voidness’, and the more implicit‘ The Void’. He has distinct definitions for each, but never tries to clearly connect them. However, it seems that they are associated with the hierarchies of the same concept in Alexander, and can be understood as parts of a comprehensive whole.
The present paper seeks to delve deeper into Alexander's views and, using an Islamic perspective, analyse the hierarchies of these concepts and their interrelations, and through rational reasoning cast some light on the less-known aspects of his thought. This results in the emergence of a concentric constellation of the void hierarchies in which the ‘The Great Void’ is at the centre, having the innermost and most subtle position, with others organised around its central position. Around this constellation are five other tiers of the concept, with the outermost being ‘simplicity’ and ‘emptiness’ located in the world of the sensual, or architecture, conveying a sense of the manifestation of the ‘Great Void’ in the form of spiritual freedom.

Relation between Architecture and Religion is a known discourse in Iran. Considering this relation in the context of Islamic Art, City and/or architecture, it is rooted in Oriental and Historic studies inherited among generations of researchers during the past years. The timeline view shows critical points upon which the discourse and its context has been shaped, modified, and developed evolutionarily. These critical points could be brought in four main categories which “corrects”, “transforms”, “methodologically” proposes or even totally “rejects” the background studies and/or established approaches in it. Exploring these critics considering their basics and criteria would help an inducing pathology of the field, among which diverse viewpoints, deductive and/or disciplinary approaches, theoretical ambiguity, inappropriate methodology, etc. could be mentioned. This critical and pathological review may help to analyze and then organize the status quo of the literature although in a passive a priori approach. It seems that an active and a posteriori approach would lead to a better methodology in research. Considering the “Relation” and the multidisciplinary nature of its components as in Art, City, Architecture & Religion (here Islam), an interdisciplinary approach in research is inevitable. The interdisciplinary approach not only hands over criteria for better criticizing the background of the field but also would shed light over the onward march of the research.

Solving the problems of everyday life is a common practice. Something becomes a problem when we do not have a ready response for it. Actually, we encounter a problem when we have a goal, but the way to reach it is not obvious. Sometimes the path to get the solution is obvious, while sometimes we face a complex pathway that requires further and more profound recognition. In architecture, like other fields of knowledge, the goal of some studies is to find solutions for the real problems of the architectural world. In this paper, we aim to define problem-solving research in architecture, its elements, processes and types. This study is being carried out with the classification strategy to clarify the characteristics of problem-solving research in architecture. For this purpose, we selected 29 PhD dissertations that were defended in the world’s top universities and sought to solve a problem in architecture. In this article, their abstracts were reviewed and analyzed. We show that in the studies where the research process leads to a solution for a real problem in architecture can be classified as problem-solving research. This kind of PhD dissertation uses scientific frameworks developed in other fields of knowledge for solving real-world problems, and therefore, similar to them, deal with two types of issues: well-defined and ill-defined problems. Ill-defined problems in architecture are often interdisciplinary with social sciences. These studies have a mixed-method approach and are in combination with other strategies. Problem-solving research is being conducted to find technical solutions, design and management strategies.

Form is a fundamental concept in the discourse of architecture that has been affected by the evolutions of architectural thinking. The non-systematic accumulation of form concepts results in ambiguity in contemporary discourse. On the other side, disregarding the dynamic nature of form, and poor identification of the factors influencing its evolution, and its application domains have made form a frozen concept and have reduced its effectiveness in responding to today’s architectural issues.

this paper concentrates on clarifying and organizing the diverse concepts of the form. Besides a theoretical framework is provided to guarantee the conceptual dynamism of the form.

Present research is conducted based on Foucault’s genealogy approach. First, the original conditions of the first appearance of form in philosophical thinking are examined, then based on the results obtained, is referred to revolutionary theories of architecture. The fundamental evolutions of the concept of the form will be analyzed, and finally, a critique of today’s form status is provided.

According to the findings, the evolution of the concept of form is originated from the evolutions of philosophical knowledge of architecture from at least three perspectives: ontology, aesthetics, and epistemology. Among these factors, epistemological approaches have made the most substantial contribution to the evolutions of form, from pre-modern to the contemporary era. The evolution of philosophical knowledge of architecture has led to the formation of six conceptual limits of form, including appearance, idea, type, structure, meaning, and affordance. Each of these concepts has limited the architecture to specific aspects; however, introducing the concept of “form field” helps to gain a comprehensive understanding of architecture while providing a framework for organizing the form concepts. It also ensures the dynamics of this concept in line with the evolutions of philosophical knowledge of architecture.

Although globalization refers to the global scale, as in contrast to the local/cultural dimension, it is subject to cross-cultural interaction. Hence, globalization re quires global thinking based on universal concepts which allow for cross-cultural dialogue and under standing. The interaction between regional thoughts is a sine qua non of global thinking and it requires the extension of thinking from the local to the global scale. At this larger scale, there is no way of avoiding encounters and dialogues with others. Although dia logue is made possible via language and translation, agreement would be impossible without shared con cepts and mentalities. Thinking and speaking about Islamic architecture is not an exception either. Speaking of Islamic art and architecture at the global scale is associated with certain challenges. One im portant challenge is the misunderstandings sur rounding the meanings of these terms. The greater portion of these misunderstandings is rooted in Ori ental studies. On the one hand, the debates on such terms inside the Islamic world are subject to implied assumptions that may not be acceptable to the out siders. On the other hand, both architecture and Is lam are complex and controversial concepts, giving rise to disagreements among experts. In addition, the cultural aspects of these concepts, as rooted in their nature, pose the challenge of cultural relativity, which is an obstacle to mutual understanding at the global scale. It is no surprise, then, that the concept of Is lamic architecture is misunderstood in global dia logues. Considering all this, if these terms are to be discussed and thought globally, such barriers must be overcome. To have a global dialogue about Islamic ar chitecture, it is necessary to rethink its constituent el ements, i.e., Islam and architecture, in a more pro found and rational way. One way to rethink a concept is to consider its dictionary definition(s) so as to better understand the meanings that it conveys. On the one hand, language is a cultural phenomenon which serves as the main medium of intra- and inter-cultural communication; so, a comparative, cross-cultural, lin guistic study can help us better understand a concept. On the other hand, definitions prepare the ground for collective agreement on a concept among the experts in a field of study and, thus, help us overcome the limits of cultural relativity. Therefore, exploring the definitions provided for religion and architecture would facilitate the feasibility of studying the relation ship between these two concepts and, as a result, dis cussing Islamic architecture. Relaying on a rational definition of religion according to Islamic wisdom, the present study addresses the literal/lexical definitions of architecture. Religion is defined as a coherent sys tem of beliefs, morals and practical principles that shape an individual’s lifestyle. Based on this defini tion, we explore and compare the literal definitions of “architect” and “architecture” in both English and Persian lexicons: An “architect” lives a life of serving other people’s lives and “architecture” is a theoreti cal-practical process whose product is livable struc tures for human beings. These two are not only con nected to religion but they are also religious in nature.

The topic of architectural stylistics in Iran has always been one of the challenging debates in scientific societies. Although stylistics is important in the field of the art and architecture, there is no clear consensus among scholars on the extent and variety of its definitions and functions. In Iran, although it has been around for half a century since the concept has entered the scientific discourses in field of architecture, but its definitions and function have not yet been formulated. The history of stylistics research indicates that stylistics has various functions as an approach to the study of architectural historyone of the most important of which is a classification method in architectural history. Its feasibility and versatility in terms of its ability to cover several approaches to different aspects of architecture in its operational definition and ultimately its flexibility in operating according to the purpose of stylistics, makes it a suitable approach. This paper attempts to explain the concept of architectural stylistics and propose a new approach to architectural conservation and restoration, based on the principles of stylistic studies. For this purpose, first the types and characteristics of research methods in the field of architecture are identified and after identifying the type of research problem, its genealogy has been determined based on the purpose and gender of the problem in order to select the appropriate method and approach. The research method of this article is content analysis with theoretical and operational definitions of stylistics.  At the end, the stylistic position of Iranian architecture was explained by analyzing the project of Mohammad Karim Pirnia, and the position of stylistics in the field of architectural conservation and restoration has been explained, which challenges existing perspectives and leads to the details of the proposed definition. The article search system is qualitative and, along with semantic interpretation and analysis of data, seeks to define a suitable and applicable approach to Iranian architectural stylistics. The research strategy is interpretive.  This is a theoretical and applied research.

Studies conducted in the domain of Iranian architecture are extensive as well as diverse. In these studies, different meanings of geometry are considered, and consequently, a wide variety of orders of Iranian architecture can be identifiable. Extensive studies are conducted on each of these geometrical orders of Iranian architecture. The importance of elaboration on these geometrical orders in comparison to each other is of great importance and considerable. Moreover, it would be able to prevent many of the errors that occurred. Taking into account the mentioned explanations, the underlying theme of this research is that what types of geometrical orders can be recognized among the votes of Iranian architectural research? This research is based on an assumption that geometrical orders of Iranian architecture have various types and levels which are elaborated till today. In this research, the qualitative content analysis method is applied to study the votes of the researcher. Choosing texts for this research and initial coding was based on the targeted selection among texts connected to the network of consistent concepts with geometry (basic concepts) in relation to Iranian architecture. Afterwards, selected texts were classified and named based on the similarities in fields (main topics), and again, these topics are secondly classified and named based on the similarities in fields. The results obtained from the geometrical orders of Iranian architecture include Geometrical orders of Human dimensions, climatic geometrical orders, geometrical orders of organization, aesthetic form geometrical orders and aesthetic arrays geometrical orders. It is noteworthy that these geometrical orders crystalize from the galaxy of Iranian geometrical architecture woven and impartible; therefore the primary goal of their identification is to gain cognition toward individually to shed light on them.

“The void” is a broad concept and is present in various fields, from mysticism, philosophy and metaphysics to sciences such as physics, material science, astronomy, as well as sciences and arts like calligraphy, music and architecture. In the area of architecture and among the scholars, Christopher Alexander has paid special attention to this concept and made it a point. He has always tried to develop a thought in which human returns to his worthy architecture. He writes of the mechanical worldview of architects to matter and the universe, and believes that in the mechanical sense of matter, architecture can not be deserved, so there is a need to review the deep layers of the minds of architects and their view of the universe. He selects a way of speech, which, at the same time seemingly simple, requires understanding some of the concepts used. These concepts are the key to entering the deep layers of Alexander's thought, and we can not seek that thought, but through the understanding of their cocepts and their origins. One of these concepts, are the void. The analysis of the context of his comments shows that the void is present in this context, in the form of three related concepts, which are directly (The Great Void and The Void), or indirectly (The Voidness) have been paid attentioned to them. These concepts can be represented by thinking about their themes and their features in two parts: non-physical (The Great Void and The Voidness) and physical (The Void). According the breadth and depth of these concepts and to fully understand them in the thought of Alexander, This article tries to identify the origin and home of these concepts. The main purpose of this paper is to clarify the source of this idea by identifying the origin of Alexander's thinking about the concept, and to determine which areas are the basis for explaining the concept of the borrower, and how those fields are related to different layers of the concept in his thought. For this purpose, three domains of religions, mysticism, science and art and architecture, which he has the most references to them, are examined. The results of this research show that the origin of Alexander's thinking about The Void, due to Alexander's references and common characteristics, is more than anything else in the field of religions and mysticism in the East, and also in the field of science, in particular, new physics. Meanwhile, the dominate of religions and mysticism is furthermore on his thesis about The Void, and forms the essence of this concept, while the findings of new physics gives scientific and experimental aspect to his ideas about this concept. Since these two domains make up the two systems of thought for understanding the truth of the universe and, therefore, share the same, we can say that the origin of the teh void concept in Alexander's thought is from the common point of the two domains, discovery of the truth of the universe, go over these two convergent intellectual systems, and develops by him. Indeed, Alexander uses these two domains explain this concept, which is a complex concept with a variety of metaphysical and physical meanings, so that all the dimensions and aspects of that concept are taken into account, but what ultimately offer is not fully metaphysical And not entirely physical, but is a Nutritioned and conjunctioned thought of Eastern religions and mysticism, and new physics, which expanded by Alexander as an architect.

Each organization and institution is formed in the context of the necessity and need in the substrate of the social changes of its duration, and grows with the continuity of interaction with the same community that emerged from it. The higher education system will also be upgraded with a proper understanding of its position and mission, while paying attention to national needs along with developments in the global system. In the Twenty-year Program Document, Iran was aimed to be ranked first in science and technology as well as economic in Southwest Asia. Major efforts of the government and decision-makers of the country were to achieve this goal. This important will not be achieved except by materially and spiritual investment and the development of scientific infrastructures with a fundamental transformation in the country's higher education system. IR Iran Academy of Sciences, together with other institutions that have influenced the development of the macro policies of higher education, and the commitment to their long-standing role in the advancement of science and knowledge, need to pay attention to the importance of empowering the country's higher education system.

In the history of Iranian architecture, different aspects of popular architecture are less known. Common people have been living in the buildings with significant architecture and had different mentalities towards them. They also had various opinions and beliefs about the profession of architecture itself, design and construction process, the architects and patrons. History of mentalities as an embranchment of cultural history was proposed by historians with regard to considerations of the people of the past toward different phenomena. We may use this historiographical approach in Iranian architecture studies and for understanding peoplechr('39')s mentality toward different meanings of architecture. This approach studies collective and daily perceptions and views towards architecture, instead of focusing on the body of architectural properties and formal thoughts. This approach uses various common methods in humanities and has its own etiquette. Subjects and examples of the history of mentality in Iranian architecture are various. Topics such as peoplechr('39')s mentality toward private architecture, their view to mythical architecture and also their imagination about prosperity concept are considered in this approach. This approach, with its own perspective, uses all relevant historical sources to recognize. However, some resources such as folk poetry literature, folk tales, travelogues, biographies, oral and pictorial sources, and objects related to architecture open up the way for history of mentalities in architecture more and better. The purpose of this study is analyzing the main concepts regarding the history of mentalities approach in architecture, recognizing common customs and its examples, and also introducing thematic sources of the approach.

Despite of its important and widespread ethical dimensions, architecture has long been studied and considered as aesthetics, rather than ethics. Any free and autonomic action of human is subject to moral observance and judgment. To build is the most fundamental activity in architecture and has many effects on human, natural environment and built environment. Therefore, it should be a subject of moral judgment. On the other hand, the relation between theory and practice is unavoidable, and ethical theory, which is essentially “prescriptive” and refers to “ought” and “ought not”, has a profound connection with acting and building. The philosophy of ethics, is the study of justifying the ethical positions and reasoning behind our moral beliefs. Normative ethics is a main branch of philosophy of ethics that generally examines good (right) and bad (false) affairs, and examines how to determine morally right and false actions. Three types of theories can be identified in the normative ethics, according to the type of attention to the results of the acts: 1) “Consequentialist theories” (includes Egoism and Utilitarianism), in which merely the result of the acts determines goodness and evil of the acts. 2) “Non-consequentialist theories” (includes Natural law theory, Divine command theory, Kant theory), in which the result does not determine goodness and evil of the acts. 3) “Virtue ethics”, in which the concept of ‘virtue’ is vital and central. Each of the normative ethical theories has some particular general position and criteria. Special opinion of these theories about ‘building in architecture’ can be deduced and inferred from their basic and general principles and viewpoints. This research is developmental, in terms of purpose; and its approach is qualitative. The research method is descriptive-analytic and it is based on rational reasoning. The purpose of this article is to study the perspectives of two important theories of normative ethics (virtue ethics and Kantian ethics) about building in architecture. How does define the desired and acceptable building in these two moral perspectives, and what kind of architecture will be result from these two theories? In the first part of the article, that is descriptive, it has been tried to identify and introduce the principles and criteria of two theories of virtue ethics and Kantian ethics through referring to the technical texts of ethics. In the second part of the article, which is analytical and argumentative, it has been tried to infer the basic instruction and their point of view on the acceptable building in architecture through reflecting on the basics and criteria of each theory, with logical reasoning method, and it has been tried to provide some evidences and examples in confirming the inferences. The Research results show that, firstly, there are several deep and serious differences between these two ethical theories; and, second, there is direct relationship between virtue ethics and traditional architecture and between Kantian ethics and contemporary architecture. On the other hand, each of us, often subconsciously, follows rules and maxims in our actions, that can be considered as kind of moral theory. If everyone be aware of his/her ethical position and reasoning for his/her ethical rules that governing his/her actions, he/she can criticize, deepen and transcend them. This paper can also be helpful in this regard.

In order to better learn the architecture of the past, it is necessary to better understand the mainstream architectural though of the period. In addition to its architectural works, the period’s architecturerelated written literature offers a way to study the period’s mindset. Nevertheless, there are few texts among the Islamic period literature explicitly and directly discussing architecture. Tazkara-t’al-Bonian and Tazkara-t’al-Abnieh are two texts from this rare genre, originating from the Ottoman era, and containing biographical and professional memoirs of Sinan, the great architect of the Islamic world. One could ask the ways in and the degree to which Sinan’s mindset can be read through these and other related texts from this period; what have been the influential ingredients, concepts and individuals of his mindset, and to what degree they have been influential? The present paper is an attempt to explore and unearth Sinan’s mindset through the above texts as well as other texts such as Resala-t’al-Memarieh and Tohfa-t’al-Memarin for presentday architectural researchers. For Sinan these texts were supposed to work as best practice instructions written to his own request by a trusted person, in the hope that he would be benignly remembered and his career would be recognized by his successors. Generally speaking, Sinan recognised two groups as having a meritorious status: the profession’s veterans and spiritual supporters, and the patrons. There are other dimensions to the architect’s mindset—Sinan in this case—under Ottoman order, based on concepts such as offering, Kaaba holiness, and being loyal to the past. Sinan’s mindset had clear spiritual dimensions, and his most important goal was being blessed and redeemed. He hoped to compete with the past and win pride for the Islamic world.

History of mentalities is one of the approaches in Historiography and one of the branches of Cultural History, which seeks to understand the mentality and beliefs of ordinary people towards different issues. One can use this approach to understand the history of Iranian architecture. As the Persepolis Complex and the Tomb of Cyrus are amongst the important works of Iranian architecture, the question of this study is whether the attitude and mentality of the people of the past, for example the people of Qajar era towards them have been the same as us. To answer this question, one can use the history of mentalities approach while using interpretive-historical research method and by studying written sources of Qajar era recognize the architectural mentality of people of that era. Accordingly, it seems that the people's perception and mentality towards monuments is very different from that of the present-day mentality. In the people’s general mentality, these works have closely been linked to myths and other common beliefs of their time.

The international conservation documents are one part of the most consequential achievements of human communitie's collaboration in recent 50 years. These documents are the abstract of international experiences as well as demonstrating the increase and evolution of communal knowledge and conception in conservation field. The expansion of new conceptually vocabulary, and also the entrance of novel meanings to the documents after the Venice charter, have caused the conservation doctrine to be improved and the more complicated heritage patterns such as rural heritage, to be considered. Mentioning some of these meanings has directly affected on the overall admission of some neglected aspects of village - as a dominant part of human heritage , and some others on presenting more elaborated and multidisciplinary attitude to it. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the effective concepts in the documents and to analyse how effective they would be on improving the necessity of rural values conservation.This paper is the result of analysing and studing about forthy documents extracted from 3 international organizations: UNESCO, ICOMOS and Council of Europe, hence limited to them.Library studies and investigation of the original texts have provided the necessary basic information for the essay.this study is considered to be categorized in qualitative researches, following a descriptive-analytic research strategy.This essay is exploring the appearence of seven meanings, having the most influence on the genesis and evolution of the concept of rural heritage: living heritage, quality of life, sustainability, cultural landscape, vernacular, intangable heritage and the spirit of the place.The following study reveals that each on of those meanings being recognized precisely, can illuminate widely the new aspects of rural heritage and lead to approximate the "rural heritage" to the total concept of "village".The overall analysis of this prosses Illuminate that the future vision of evolutionary concept of “rural heritage” will confront the challenge of multiplicity and adopting it with its ontological roots.

A review of the history of architectural conservation implies that ontological attitude of scholars and theorists in the field of historic places› conservation is one of the most important principles of conservation theories. Those features of historic places which are considered as more significant at the moment of recognition are often turned into an issue for conservation. However, there is not a clear understanding of such an issue, especially its theoretical basics, in Iran›s today community.
Accordingly, this paper explores the ontology of historic places by relying on Transcendental Wisdom ascribed to Sadr al-Moto›alehin Shirazi and based on the doctorine of «Principality of the Existence» which offers an explication of the existence of material beings. In this line, the mentioned relations between «material and form», «form and meaning» and «extrinsic and intrinsic aspects of things» in the system of Transcendental Wisdom and also the theory of Substantial Motion and its explanation apropos the fluid existence of material beings and finally transcendentalism›s conceptualization of the relation between «existent» and «being» in the world›s system are the main views taken from such a philosophy. In all, since this study is in line with Sadraei›s philosophy it enjoys analytical-philosophical nature and employs logical reasoning and analogical methodology.
Respectively, the historic place is scrutinized from three aspects. The first aspect refers to such a place «as a single measurable totality» whereas the other two aspects regard it «as a changeable totality» and «as an element within the contextual measures».
With respect to the first aspect, the existence of the historic place is considered as a measurable element enjoying several levels of emergence. These levels constitute the triple aspects of meaning, form (and its extrinsic determinations) and material. Also, corresponding to each aspect, the historic place gains some measures. Consequently, regarding the measures of any historic place, we can talk about the measures referring to meaning, form (intrinsic and extrinsic measures) and material.
Moreover, among these levels, each level is more significant than the lower levels representing the existence of the historic place. In other words, the existence of the historic place is manifested in its intrinsic form and meaning more than anything else and the material as well as the extrinsic determinations of the form are simply the manifestations or, in a word, the context for the emergence of the historic place›s existence. However, a historic place is finally a single entity which has existential integrity and the aforementioned levels are not separate from each other in reality.
Then, the temporality and mixing of the historic place›s existence with change is considered. In this respect, relying on the theory of Substantial Motion, the historic place is regarded as a «changeable totality» and evolving issue mingled with time. In this respect, the historic place is a fluid entity, not an object, which is a permanent becoming; it is a gradually-occurring matter and is like an entity scattered in time whose past and future constitute different parts of a single entity. Thus, in reality, we cannot talk about persistence and consistency in the existence of the historic place and just the issue of continuity in its existence can be raised. This continuity is possible due to the becoming on the orbit of measures referring to its particular existence. But the question that other than the measures of the historic place in the mentioned triple aspects what other measures referring to its particular existence can be found paves the way for paying attention to another aspect of its existence.In this aspect, the historic place is considered not as a single totality but as a part of its surrounding world which can be the world in the broadest scope. It is argued that simply recognizing the elements within the existence of the historic place cannot provide full knowledge of it and it is necessary to consider its inevitable relation to the environment or more general context. Accordingly, the historic place as an entity becomes the manifestation of «being» and its validity depends on such a manifestation. In this aspect, the historic place becomes the manifestation (relatively speaking) of the names and attributes of the being and the regularities originated from it and, consequently, it is located under the existential systems of the world and its manifestations in the natural as well as the cultural world. These systems or orders have some manifestations in the nature such as a number of laws referring to qualitative and quantitative aspects of the place (meaning, form and material). In this respect, the cultural measures and orders receive their validity via corresponding to existential systems and thus they can be used as a criterion for the existence of the historic place.
In general, from the perspective of this study, the historic place is first and foremost an «integrated totality and objective measurable entity which changes permanently» while its particular measures (in the triple levels of meaning, form and material) are located under the existential systems manifested in the natural as well as cultural rules. It should also be considered that the validity of the historic place›s existence depends on its capacity to manifest the existential systems. Thus, the constant and necessary matter in it is the very orders or existential measures manifested in it which can be called «the aspect of being» or «Allah›s aspect» in a word.

Considering the conservation and cultural heritage of the most significant achievements of human communities have been reflected in various international documents during the last fifty years. Examining these documents are critical given that they summarize international experiences and reflect the evolution of human knowledge and philosophies in the field of conservation in general and conservation of rural heritage in particular. As one of the human's precious assets, villages and their characteristics and elements have been constantly mentioned and discussed in the process of evolving these documents. These documents view village as an ancient phenomenon, which expresses harmony between human and nature for centuries Villages have been continually adjusted to human needs, their social and natural environment, and hence are worthy to be conserved in their entirety.
This paper relies on examining and analyzing around thirty international documents in the field of conservation. This examination focuses on the meanings and conceptions of villages and rural values. This study is specifically concentrated on documents from three international organizations: UNESCO, ICOMOS and Council of Europe, in four periods; starting from International charter for the conservation and restoration of monuments and sites (Venice Charter 1964 A.D.) to Pan-European charter of rural heritage: for a sustainable territorial development 2012 A.D. Research methods consist of document review and content analysis of the original texts, using a descriptive- analytic research strategy. The content analysis focused on comparing different definitions, values, strategies and other elements related to the principles of conservation in these documents and their evolution. The paper concluded that in these documents, the “rural heritage” is considered to be of importance as a “harmonious whole” and a “multidisciplinary base”. Furthermore, conservation approaches have shifted from restoration to integrated conservation through multidisciplinary strategies, while the challenge of integrating rural conservation and rural development persists in these documents. This study and further research in this area can result in establishing reliable principles and approaches for rural conservation.

In the history of architectural conservation, conservators or conservation theorists’ viewpoint regarding the identity of historical places, particularly from the perspective of facing change, is one of the most significant bases of the conservation theories. However the Iranian society today, doesn’t have a clear view consistent with the cultural principles of the historical places identity as a subject of conservation. This is what causes to arise such questions as “what is the approach of Persian-Islamic culture toward the identity of historical places from the perspective of dealing with change and temporality? In the present study with the aim of understanding the historical places as a conservation subject, firstly an overview of related perceptions in conservation theories is represented. Existing approaches include three different approaches toward identity of the historical places with the titles of “Identity as a variable having a constant element”, “Identity as a process” and “Subjective identity”. What follows after a description and critique of these approaches, is an explanation of the Islamic wisdom approach as one of the most important thoughtful bases of the Iranian culture. Consequently, based on this approach, the identity of place is a variable having a constant subject. In this approach the constant subject involves some degrees of relative constant to absolute constant. Accordingly, the continuity of place identity in the process of change is rooted in some degrees of constant subject from traditions and patterns belonging to a specific region to higher degrees, divine constant traditions, substances and immutable archetypes of natural phenomena and their proportions and relationships. Thus, the relative degrees of constant subjects such as regional traditions and patterns, regardless of their relationship with higher levels of constant subject, can’t be considered as timelessness criteria for identity of historical places, unless it refers, in a non-repetitive manner, to higher degrees of constant subject as in the contemporary era that the manifestation of constant subject in the lives and creating of place-making humans has reached its lowest levels.

Getting older in every existence (animate beings and inanimate objects) cusses a quality, which could be called senescence. Physical appearance of senescence results in internal challenge, change and development. In order to improve a correct interaction between human and historical site, it is necessary to study the unknown capacities of Iranian historical architecture. Compared with the physical aspects, understanding the semantic dimensions of a monument is intangible. Understanding the ultra-physical aspects of a monument is subtler compared with the physical aspects and requires attendance in workspace and comparative analogy with other sciences - such as the humanities. Aging is not just limited to humans and everything that is alive past life it can be called old. Reverent look in historic monuments based on considering them as a museum or sanctify, prevent playing there active role –as a mentor- in society. The Elderlies in Human Society reminding the death, they are narrating diverse experiences, comprising relaxation based on a long life against the glancing emotions in contemporary age. If we do not notice these things, old mans should be waiting to dying, and slow down progress of their aging is a annoying matter to the new society. Cicero says: The assertion that old mans could not be accomplished any task and he is useless, it is like the saying, the helmsman at sea will do nothing. Aging and obsolescence of monument is also effective on work’s soul in addition to its body and gives specific qualities to the work and demands special clerk for better interaction of human with work. The subject of this paper is to compare the work aging with human aging and its significance in Islam. When we look at a work of art, a dialogue is opened between the work of art as an aesthetic object and our eye. Concentration on the material aspects over the artistic or aesthetic ones tends to reduce works of art to objects. Ruskin In the lamp of memory ( written in 1848 )  remark that the greatest glory of a building is in its age, and the deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity. Buildings achieve such voicefulness from the succeeding generations that use them. One thing we can’t do with the past is replicate it. This paper is aimed to stimulate different view angles to Iranian architecture monuments and to create constructive interaction based on mutual understanding of both parties› needs – human and monument. In order to understand the phenomenon of monument aging with descriptive and phenomenology method, we will examine «aging» from Islamic point of view and will import the resulting understanding into the physical universe of architecture using adaptive method. It should be noted that the metaphorical view Effects about Iranian historical architecture is the main cause in shaping the framework paper progress. According to Islam, aging is not a disease, but it is a gift of God (the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him)) said: white hair is light, do not trim it); also Islamic point of view to aging subject is holistic and is generalizable to the elders out of the elders of human society (such as historical buildings). The results of comparing the narratives of aging dignity with architectural monuments; 1. The presence in monument is reminder, because old human and old monument has the role of remaindering like prophet. 2. The necessity of maintaining the respect of aging work in both human presences in work realm and in physical interventions realm. 3. The monument status is the best, because the poor sections or errors in design and construction over time have been sentenced to replacement by better work. 4. Preserving aging works is preferable to renewing because they have recorded ancients’ self materials and dignity resulting from aging of materials creates the same sense of respect in present person that white hair of the elderly person creates this respect.