International Journal of

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The traditional architecture is the achievement of mankind experiences in different geographical/cultural and social domains. The traditional architecture of Iran as a valuable outcome is one of the live and spirited instances of the history of human life that through pondering and research and close relationship with its natural, historical and human environment would be obtained. The repeatability of it contemporarily is somehow difficult so the Iranian architects and urban planners mostly focused their attentions and efforts on preservation and conservation of it. A brief review of such literature provided within this era outlines that mostly current studies and researches focuses on the outcome of such architecture or at most consider the characteristics of their creators and are less surveyed the creation and its process context. The attitude of traditional architect toward designing context or "the place of design" is one of the least considered aspects of traditional architecture. Such attention would lead to noteworthy achievements even in today's attitudes toward design and effective factors. The evolution manner of architecture traditionally which is in place of attention in this paper, provides a method of direct reference of the traditional architect toward the place of design or "earth" even when some written documents of them are not available. To achieve such goal this paper mainly concentrated on the remaining resources. In this respect the historic habitats of Yazd could be mentioned as one of the paragons of "Iranian Traditional Architecture". This paper briefly expresses and points on this fact that the creation of architecture traditionally happened in a totally different existential scheme in compare to modern era that specifically seeks such difference within the attitude and approach toward earth (site) or the place of design. The theories of two notable personalities of contemporary architecture "Christian Nordberg Schultz" and "Christopher Alexander" are considered. This is necessary where as while fulfilling the reliability of the paper and points on some notable similarities within their theories by what's recognizable in Iranian architecture and declares the different fundamental aspects, too. In respect to the subject, part of paper considers the clarification and illumination of traditional architecture.

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the light of the Genius Loci theory. The theory has been verified in many studies by the traditional-Islamic philosophers. Proving the closeness of these two viewpoints in extent and type of the environmental influences on disposition can open a venue for applying the theory of Genius Loci to establish a basis for environmental design in regions with Islamic and traditional cultures. This research traces the origins of this theory to the ancient Islamic philosophy. In the first step, the relationships between environmental and cultural characters are explained in four climate-dispositional patterns using Christian Norberg-Schulz’s theory of Genius Loci. The second step deals with the philosophical origins of the theory within the Islamic thoughts through four patterns. Islamic philosophers have considered the types and the extent of climate’s influences on disposition and have distinguished different faculties and behavioral affordances for various temperaments and four climates - “hot and dry”, “hot and wet”, “cold and dry” and “cold and wet”. Temperament and the hot and dry climate have shown to be suitable for the moral training of the mankind and assume the character traits of the God. The findings of the present study, the phenomenologist’s ideas concerning the character type and environmental/cultural characters in different climates, and the association of the environment and human, have over lapses with the theories of the Islamic philosophers.