Investigation of the Position of Liminality in the Architecture of Villa Houses in the Northern Area of Central Tehran Constructed During the Pahlavi Era Based on the Concept of Dwelling by Norberg Schulz

Problem statement:

 Liminality as the middle state of the phase of rites of passage, including separation, transition, and incorporation of the viewpoint of pundit anthropologists, has a basic position in dwelling whose essence is the dialectic of settling and wandering in Norberg-Schulz’s viewpoint; Therefore investigation of the position of liminality in spaces based on the result of explicating liminality in dwelling including hierarchy, articulation, openness and permeability, robustness, variety and dynamism is an essential matter in the field of creating spaces especially residential architecture as private mode of dwelling.

The goals of this article are to investigate the position of liminality in villa houses of the Pahlavi era in the North of the central part of Tehran and the differences of liminality’s position in different areas of those buildings in the first and second parts of Pahlavi era. Pahlavi era is chosen as the period of research according to fields and samples of changing liminality in residential buildings and Tehran is chosen as a place of research because it was directly exposed to these changes as a capital and model of other cities.

This descriptive-analytical research has been done through investigation cases based on inscriptive studying, field observation, documentation, and comparative analyzing findings.

The results of the research show that the position of hierarchy, articulation, and openness has been changed; In this way, inattention to these characters in the outer area of building’s entrances, room entrances, and exterior spaces and surfaces leads to dominance of openness and separation; obscurity and sudden entry; and domination of other buildings; while the entrance of interior spaces in connection with stairs had more impressive role progressively and made transitional center in the whole of space. Moreover, robustness, variety, and dynamism have been figured agreeable especially in semi-opened spaces of the second part of the Pahlavi era, despite domination.