جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه "تاریخ نگاری معماری" در نشریات گروه "هنر و معماری"

The Historiography of Iranian architecture is deemed to appear as a field of inquiry around the beginning of the 20th century. Among the various factors giving rise to it, the modern Iranian historiography has an outstanding role. In this article we seek to clarify this role by analyzing the way the first generation of the modern Iranian historians regarded architecture. To this end, we have investigated a selection of modern histories, written during the second half the Qajar era, using the interpretative methods. We have traced the changes in the perception of architecture in these texts and its implications for the subject, as it gradually undertook different roles in historiographies, moving from a mere material evidence towards a technical, independent field of academic research. In pre-Modern histories, built environment was only addressed to provide a setting for the events the historians intended to describe and writing about architecture was a way to appraise the achievement of kings and rulers. This study pinpoints the first instances where this tradition gave way to a new manner of regarding architecture in Iranian historiography. With the outset of modern historiography “Ancient Persia” emerged as a dominant narrative. The historians also started to gradually base their work on reliable facts and evidence, which included material remnants of ancient times such as coins and decorative objects, and later on, more prominent archaeological findings like buildings. Ancient architecture had become a source for obtaining knowledge of the past, although the scale it was perceived didn’t surpass the inscriptions or ornaments of the structures. As the scope of the general histories expanded to cover a wide range of historical subjects complementary to political chronologies, freestanding chapters were allocated to architecture. The historians consulted the western architectural surveys and even ventured the historical sites to study and measure the buildings. The architectural works in their writings were represented in their entirety and they utilized an almost technical terminology to describe the physical and spatial aspects of the buildings. Illustrations and detailed plans were also used to provide further information. This approach presented architecture to the Persian audience as a subject of historical inquiry and thus, paved the way for a new generation of researchers to view history of architecture as an independent field of study. The first pieces on history of Iranian architecture, independent from general histories, were articles written by art historians or archaeologist, working as delegates for western research centers, and were introduced to Iranians through the activities of newly-founded cultural institutes such as Anjoman-e-Athar-e-Melli. The accumulation of these efforts during the next decades finally lead to the publication of the first surveys of Iranian architecture.

Problem statement: 

Architectural historiography in Iran, like other fields of theoretical foundations of architecture, has not achieved a proper position, and on the other hand, existing historiographical works have been less studied to determine the asset and lack of asset in this field through this achievement and to more clarify the path of Iranian architectural historiography. Therefore, it seems necessary to study the works of architectural historiography. Thus, in the present study, the following questions are addressed: Which attitudes and methods has Arthur Pope used to study Iranian architecture? What are the fields and contexts in which these methods and attitudes have been formed? What has been the result of applying these methods and attitudes for understanding Iranian architecture?

This study was conducted to review the written works by Arthur Pope to identify his attitudes and methods as well as his achievement in using them for understanding Iranian architecture.

For this purpose, grounded theory was used as the research method.

The result showed that Arthur Pope, influenced by the requirements of the time and the needs of Iranian architectural historiography in that period, has used attitudes and methods to understand Iranian architecture through which, he has presented a history of Iranian architecture. Although, it is more focused on the physical aspects of Iranian architecture; but apart from the physical aspects, he has also paid some attention to other aspects of Iranian architecture, such as space and backgrounds of formation. His architectural historiography has more architectural color and sense than other historians of his time. He has also tried further than them to present his view closer to that of an Iranian person. Therefore, he can be considered a historian who has made acceptable efforts in writing a history book about Iranian architecture, taking into account the requirements of his time.

Architectural historiography is one of the most important areas in architecture, and the main problem is that in Iran, it is not considered by domestic historians as it should; on the other hand, the existing historiographical works, which are mainly the result of the work of Western historians, are less criticized and their strengths and weaknesses are unclear. Therefore, in this research, as one of the historians influencing the history of Iranian architecture, Andre Godard’s historiographical works will be criticized and investigated. These works used as a reliable source for the study of Iranian architecture have not been reread and criticized, its criticizing is necessary. It is not clear that what aspects of the Iranian architecture is investigated by the historian based on his particular attitude and his historiography method and which aspects are neglected. Therefore their review clarifies the existing defects, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it can be a guide for mapping the history of Iranian architecture by Iranian historians.
The objective of this research is to criticize and investigate Andre Godard’s historiography considering the fields and context of his historiography and how to reflect these fields in his historiography works. In this research, extraction of data from the written works of Godard’s historiography is a large part of the research process, and therefore the grounded theory that is a theory derived from the data collected and analyzed systematically during the research process was selected as the method of this research. The results of this study indicated that Andre Godard influenced by the fields of his era has investigated the historiography of Iranian architecture with a particular attitude which affected type of his recognition from Iranian architecture and in general, he can be introduced as a partial thinking historian, product-centered and regardless of the influential fields in architecture, Physics-centered, regardless of architectural aspects.

Although the discipline of Iranian architectural history has its roots in the recent century, its theories and discourses are still under debate. Stylistic analysis is one of the major tools in art and architectural historiography. In this paper, we discuss differences in the purposes behind the stylistic analyses provided by two major historians of Iranian architecture, namely Mohammad-Karim Pirnia and Donald Wilber. This paper aims to discuss the stylistic analysis of Iranian architecture and study the effects of its purposes on the product of architectural historiography. The study extracts concepts by thematic analysis of the principal histories written by the two authors, which are Sabk-shenāsi-ye me‘māri-ye Irāni [The Stylistic Analysis of Iranian Architecture] and The Architecture of Islamic Iran: The Il Khanid Period, and compares the concepts by logical reasoning. For this end, the basics in the stylistic narratives in the works of Pirnia and Wilber are compared first. Next, elements of narrative and purposes of their historical accounts are compared. In comparing the basics, the different approaches to formal parameters in stylistic classification as well as to temporal and local restrictions are studied. In comparing elements of narrative, the differences in theory regarding style origins, style phases, and style development are studied. Secondary elements of narrative such as the interrelation of styles are also studied, in addition to the benefits of each of the two stylistic approaches for architects. Findings suggest that the two approaches to stylistic analysis do not totally match. It could be stated that different purposes underlie the analyses of Pirnia and Wilber, resulting in different analytic systems. In Pirnia’s analysis, regional factors contribute to the formation of architectural styles, directing architects towards vernacular concerns in Iranian architecture. Nevertheless, every style in this approach has advantages and weaknesses, and as models, they are not of the same value. Pirnia regards internal changes inside the architectural atmosphere as the motive for changes in different styles. On the other hand, Wilber believes in some sort of continuity across Iranian architectural styles, such that if every style was conceived within its preceding style. He does not make value judgments about styles and sees their development as a reflection of changes outside the architectural atmosphere. Hence, the stylistic analysis of Pirnia could be interpreted as internal-educational, while that of Wilber could be thought of as external-historicistic.