Prioritization and Exploration of the Principles and Values of Islamic Era Iranian Architecture based on Manifestation of Meaning in Contextual Elements of Architecture (by Seeking Assistance from ĀYA 23 of the Honorable Surah Hashr)

When architecture is discussed in the land of Iran, architecture is created as a container and context of life for human beings where the Spirit of God is blown in his (her) (Surah Al-Hijr - Verse 29), his existence is not limited to material needs, but he is a creature with different existential levels. It derives from the material needs such as eating and sleeping, and need for shelter, which arise from the material levels of human existence to the psychological needs that embrace a range of needs from security to belonging and levels of spirituality of human existence with its characteristics and needs in which the essence and basic instinct of humans lies. Iran is a country with long-standing architectural value. Experts have long a consensus on the preservation, restoration and rehabilitation of Iran’s past values to preserve cultural values representing the national identity. Identification of the past noble values and adopting the most important one in observing criteria in accordance with the circumstances of time and place of today's society is considered the main problem. In this regard, we should try to recognize the Iranian - Islamic architectural values and reflect them to young professionals who are somehow involved in this issue. Today, it is tried to convey ideas and thoughts to others in the form of desired concepts and ideas using the meaning language which is indirect. In the meantime, valuable Iranian Islamic architecture, due to its comprehensive functionality as well as permanent and enduring presence in our culture, is considered more than before. Because maintaining Iranian – Islamic values and identity is one of the requirements, modern designers are obliged to think deeply about traditional architectural values and standards to get rid of the imitation and create a design in accordance with modern human expectations based on Islamic law. In this regard, architecture, due to direct contact with human life, plays an important role in strengthening or weakening culture and identity in the face of globalization, for all the people are associated with the architecture and their behaviors are shaped in these buildings. The importance and necessity of this issue, in challenging designers to think about the different aspects of the past architecture and special attention to the ancient fundamental values, is to enrich the design quality. The study has a qualitative and quantitative research method, because it used desk and field study to gather information. Its qualitative nature was created with research studies and literature review and its quantitative nature was shaped by choosing statistical population and preparing a questionnaire for the analysis. The identification of the past architectural values and selecting the most essential of them are considered as the main issue in the observance of the scales matching with the temporal and spatial conditions of the today’s society. Efforts have to be constantly made for recognizing the Iranian-Islamic architectural values and reflecting them to the young experts who are somehow involved in this issue. The present piece of writing has been compiled based on a qualitative and quantitative method and the study has been conducted based on a survey method; the study is fundamental in terms of objectives. It is posited based on the selection of a process of the qualitative-descriptive type and its investigation based on a quantitative method that “there is observed a significant relationship between meaning and contextual elements of architecture”. It might have been quite common in the past architecture, especially in the Islamic Era’s architecture, that the manifestations and embodiments of the concepts stemming from the society’s culture were manifested most beautifully in the architectural works hence more readily identifiable. Moreover, the principles that are dealt with in the resources are different in terms of prioritization and valuation; thus, experts’ notions have been used in this area to quantitatively discover these topics using survey methods. At first, in order to achieve sublimity in architecture through seeking assistance from the honorable Surah Hashr, ĀYA 23, and comparing it with the valuable architectural principles, it has been descriptively investigated and extracted and 15 professors were subsequently asked to confirm this information. Next, a questionnaire was codified and, in order to select a study sample volume comprised of the experts, including the professors and students of post-graduate education in state and national universities of the country, five universities were selected that included 120 individuals in total and, excluding the imperfect questionnaires, 100 questionnaires were finally attained. The data were analyzed in SPSS software, version 21, using statistical tests (one-sample t-test, two-sample test, ANOVA test and Friedman test); the results have been offered in two descriptive and inferential methods. The results indicate that there is a significant relationship between the indicators of the concepts and the contextual elements in architectures. Furthermore, factors like semantic, climatic, structural and eventually technological indicators were respectively found with the highest degree of importance.