A comparative comparison of some architectural works of Karim Taherzadeh Behzad and Hossein Sheikh Zainuddin in contrast with the tradition

The connection with the history of contemporary Iranian architecture as well as dealing with tradition refers to one of the contemporary Iranian architecture’s problems. Hence, the prominent architects of the contemporary architecture’s last three generations have selected a personal technique in designing their works. Using the content analysis and logical reasoning methods, the present paper compares the prominent works of Karim Taherzadeh Behzad as one of the contemporary first generation architects and Hossein Sheikh Zeineddin as one of the contemporary second generation architects in terms of dealing with tradition. It shows that both architects have their own personal technique of employing tradition, so that in spite of the high value of attention to the historical architectural spaces’ concepts and attributes and given the lack of deep spatial separation in Iran’s historical architecture, the result of the contemporary redefinition of these architects’ works from tradition is not clear; therefore, an explanation is needed to understand the architect’s real intention, and these interpretations in many cases are aimed at justifying the design’s initial idea. Behzad has exhibited the traces of tradition in his works, but its interpretation is not easily tangible in these works. Zeineddin also has employed architecture with a modern appearance but traditional concepts in his works. Despite having modernism thoughts, he has ultimately made his work Iranian, besides expressing his linguistic identity according to tradition. Of course, in Zeineddin’s works, the traces of tradition are more evident than those of Behzad.