International Journal of

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When thinking about traditional Iranian architecture, one imagines extensive ornamental patterns that adorn almost every surface of mosques and other prominent buildings. Yet, many theories of architecture since the beginning of twentieth century have considered ornamentation a superficial and superfluous layer. But, are these ornamental surfaces superficial and can they be removed so easily? This paper uses a qualitative research methodology based on theoretical cross examination and critical analysis to highlight the significance of surface and appearances in architecture and argue that formulating a strategy to adorn architecture is in fact the generating gene of every architectural movement, from Modernism to Postmodernism and even to Parametricism of recent times. By setting up a philosophical and a theoretical discourse about the notion of surface and the various metaphors used in architectural theory, this paper concludes that from the woven walls of first architectural spaces to the clothed walls of modern times, surfaces have played a sacred role in architecture, and rather than being superficial barriers that mask reality, they are indeed the very materials with which architects demarcate space and create new aesthetics.

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Postmodernism is a very ambiguous term. It attracted many researchers from different fields of knowledge in the late 1960s. This article explains intertextuality as a critical means to derive its concepts and components in order to understand the hidden layers of meaning in postmodern pluralist ideology. Variable thoughts of postmodern architecture have been divided into two categories—Historicist and Deconstruction—to be able to detect and classify the inner layers of meaning in postmodern architecture.
The authors seek to answer these questions:
1. How can we achieve the intertextual relationship between Historicist postmodern architecture and Deconstruction?
2. How can we define Historicist postmodern architecture and Deconstruction into the diachronic and synchronic axes?
The results show that Historicist postmodernism uses objective signifiers and moves only along the diachronic axis. This group only imitates the past and its elements have humor and irony in the works. Due to the lack of attention to the synchronic axis, some parts of intertextuality are missing. These include the uncertainty of meaning and multilayered texts, which are principles of intertextuality. Deconstruction moves in both the diachronic and synchronic axes and, unlike Historicist ones, multi-meaning, multi-valued, and multi-layered features are seen in the works. They use both previous and contemporary texts. The method of data analysis is based on causal comparison and the rational analysis of authors. This article is a logical reasoning research that uses reasoning to explain relationships and understand the components of a subjective system after gathering information and understanding the theory of intertextuality.