Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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Nowadays Islamic countries more than ever concentrate on identity to revive their dignity at the age of globalization. Countries of west of Asia especially Persian Gulf countries enjoy a prosperous architectural era because of oil well revenues. Saudi Arabia from among them selected purposely to analyses to understand interaction of localization and globalization in contemporary architecture of developing countries. Saudi Arabia as the birthplace of Islam with the growing economy in recent years, is a good context for massive constructions, which result in identity crisis in contemporary architecture. Economic growth during last 40 years in these countries has affected various aspects of their lives. Undoubtedly architecture and urbanism as one of the main substrates were affected by these developments. Limitation of construction technology and engineers’ abilities in these countries made the Arabs to assign the designing and construction phase of their huge projects to European and American architects and engineers with completely different background and cultural beliefs from Muslims’. Although some researches have focused on identity crisis in modern architecture, very few researches have noted the interaction and conflict between the Islamic identity and contemporary architecture. The main objective of this research is to identify and analyze the native and Islamic identity in contemporary architecture of Saudi Arabia. The main research questions are: 1- What are the main current trends in contemporary architecture of Saudi Arabia? And how they have noted the concept of identity in their works? What is the relationship between theory (what the architects have in their minds or the goal they are following to reach an ideal design) and practice (what is observed in final result or understood by people) in contemporary architecture of Saudi Arabia? According to the theoretical framework, current buildings in Saudi Arabia are analyzed based on five general parameters and factors: 1-Main idea forming the design (concept), 2-The Construction Technology, 3- The material in the unit, 4- The shape and form of the unit, 5- the relationship with the surrounding environment. This article analyzed the buildings of the past two decades impartially in terms of the referred parameters. This research consists of two main parts. In the first part the architect’s opinion about his/her design was discussed. In the second part researchers analyzed the mentioned works according to the theoretical framework. The comparative analysis of the architect's comments about his work and researchers’ inferences can determine the distance between theory and practice of contemporary architecture in Saudi Arabia, then the architect’s success in achieving his/her objectives will be determined. This comparison will indicate whether the architects have succeeded in conveying their ideas to people or not. To meet scheduled objectives, fifty artworks were selected randomly from among the buildings designed in the past two decades, and were analyzed according to the main parameters. Then the quantitative data were transferred to SPSS22 software to determine the correlation between these two groups. Studies conducted indicate that a considerable proportion of contemporary architecture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are design by foreign architects who are not familiar enough with Islam as the official religion of the country. We can see some puzzlement in contemporary architecture due to the diversity of forms and concepts. The architects’ description about their own works indicated that the main trends of contemporary architecture are in the use of postmodern forms, conceptualism, prevalent structures and modern materials. The findings indicate what architects statements and opinions expressed in the form of Islamic revival, is leading to imitate the famous forms of ancient architecture in practice. In fact, imitation of ancient forms and reconstruction of them by modern technologies means the expression of Islamic and native identity in contemporary architecture to most of the foreign architects. This leads to a contradiction between the theory and practice in contemporary works, although the construction quality of the analyzed samples is remarkable. To solve these problems it is essential to assign projects to vernacular architects and engineers where possible. Native architects with Islamic culture and beliefs will be more capable than foreign ones in expression and manifestation of Islamic identity in their works. On the other hand foreign architects should change their strategies in dealing with problems. Avoiding imitation of old patterns, getting more information about theories, Islamic culture, main needs and aspirations of Muslims are some of these strategies helping the architects to deal with the referred problems. These challenges make some serious threats and challenged contemporary architecture of developing countries. The results of the paper show that new architectural technologies and revivalist trends are the most important players in contemporary architecture of developing countries such as Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries because of their richness in cultural heritage, spiritual findings and local identity.

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Nowadays Islamic countries more than ever concentrate on identity to revive their dignity at the age of globalization. Countries of west of Asia especially Persian Gulf countries enjoy a prosperous architectural era because of oil well revenues. Saudi Arabia from among them selected purposely to analyses to understand interaction of localization and globalization in contemporary architecture of developing countries. Saudi Arabia as the birthplace of Islam with the growing economy in recent years, is a good context for massive constructions, which result in identity crisis in contemporary architecture. Economic growth during last 40 years in these countries has affected various aspects of their lives. Undoubtedly architecture and urbanism as one of the main substrates were affected by these developments. Limitation of construction technology and engineers’ abilities in these countries made the Arabs to assign the designing and construction phase of their huge projects to European and American architects and engineers with completely different background and cultural beliefs from Muslims’. Although some researches have focused on identity crisis in modern architecture, very few researches have noted the interaction and conflict between the Islamic identity and contemporary architecture. The main objective of this research is to identify and analyze the native and Islamic identity in contemporary architecture of Saudi Arabia. The main research questions are: 1- What are the main current trends in contemporary architecture of Saudi Arabia? And how they have noted the concept of identity in their works? What is the relationship between theory (what the architects have in their minds or the goal they are following to reach an ideal design) and practice (what is observed in final result or understood by people) in contemporary architecture of Saudi Arabia? According to the theoretical framework, current buildings in Saudi Arabia are analyzed based on five general parameters and factors: 1-Main idea forming the design (concept), 2-The Construction Technology, 3- The material in the unit, 4- The shape and form of the unit, 5- the relationship with the surrounding environment. This article analyzed the buildings of the past two decades impartially in terms of the referred parameters. This research consists of two main parts. In the first part the architect’s opinion about his/her design was discussed. In the second part researchers analyzed the mentioned works according to the theoretical framework. The comparative analysis of the architect's comments about his work and researchers’ inferences can determine the distance between theory and practice of contemporary architecture in Saudi Arabia, then the architect’s success in achieving his/her objectives will be determined. This comparison will indicate whether the architects have succeeded in conveying their ideas to people or not. To meet scheduled objectives, fifty artworks were selected randomly from among the buildings designed in the past two decades, and were analyzed according to the main parameters. Then the quantitative data were transferred to SPSS22 software to determine the correlation between these two groups. Studies conducted indicate that a considerable proportion of contemporary architecture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are design by foreign architects who are not familiar enough with Islam as the official religion of the country. We can see some puzzlement in contemporary architecture due to the diversity of forms and concepts. The architects’ description about their own works indicated that the main trends of contemporary architecture are in the use of postmodern forms, conceptualism, prevalent structures and modern materials. The findings indicate what architects statements and opinions expressed in the form of Islamic revival, is leading to imitate the famous forms of ancient architecture in practice. In fact, imitation of ancient forms and reconstruction of them by modern technologies means the expression of Islamic and native identity in contemporary architecture to most of the foreign architects. This leads to a contradiction between the theory and practice in contemporary works, although the construction quality of the analyzed samples is remarkable. To solve these problems it is essential to assign projects to vernacular architects and engineers where possible. Native architects with Islamic culture and beliefs will be more capable than foreign ones in expression and manifestation of Islamic identity in their works. On the other hand foreign architects should change their strategies in dealing with problems. Avoiding imitation of old patterns, getting more information about theories, Islamic culture, main needs and aspirations of Muslims are some of these strategies helping the architects to deal with the referred problems. These challenges make some serious threats and challenged contemporary architecture of developing countries. The results of the paper show that new architectural technologies and revivalist trends are the most important players in contemporary architecture of developing countries such as Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries because of their richness in cultural heritage, spiritual findings and local identity.

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In the history of architecture, since the architects sought to enter the light inside and as a result, its relationship with external conditions, the concept of transparency has been studied. Therefore, elements such as glass have been used to create transparency and entering the light. But because of lack of technical knowledge to achieve that goal, the less successes have been achieved. By the beginning of Modern architecture in the world, some new words come into the literature of architecture such as the theory of transparency in architecture. Actually transparency is an expression of the thoughts and ideals of Modern architecture in the shape of own self.
 On the other hand, deployment of transparency in the form of glassy architecture, created the base of criticism for its widespread use by critics of modernism. Colin Rowe and Robert Slutsky in the article “The Literal and the phenomenal transparency” presented an integral definition of transparency that could help Postmodern view about transparency. At the first, they classify the Literal transparency as the perceptual or spectacular one, and phenomenal transparency as the conceptual or readable one. Literal transparency actually refers to light permeability of materials and Interference indoor and outdoor spaces. A concept that could be considered as influenced by cubist painting techniques and aesthetics of Modern architecture.
The other statement of transparency, which is often used in the architecture of most of the world, is traction and appeal to create a sequence of spaces inside and outside the building. Which we can see the appearance of a perfect sample of it in Iranian architecture. In Iranian Islamic architecture that the valuable and exalted heritage of our ancients was the concepts of light and its different forms of that in wisdom, philosophy and art, not only before Islam but also after that.
The question is that how was transparency in Iranian Islamic architecture and what are conceptual differences between modern and postmodern architecture with Iranian Islamic architectural transparency. Transparency is among most important architectural issues that are rarely addressed. This importance is because of the comparison of some viewpoints about concept of transparency in the eras of Modern, Post-modern architecture and Iranian Islamic architecture to achieving principles of the formation of the concept and its types with aim to precise definition of structural concepts of objective and subjective.
The Article based on analyzing texts and collected data through librarian search and some documentaries. To narrow the scope of work, the evolution of transparency in the modern and post-modern movement. At first express types of transparency in modern architecture, postmodern and Iran›s Islamic architecture then study Comparative Comparison them and finally, explain and evaluate the transparency of Iran›s Islamic architecture.
This article expresses some kinds of transparency and divides it to Three Categories: Literal transparency, Phenomenal transparency and Semantic transparency and then analyses the philosophical and aesthetic based on architecture of modern, postmodern and Iranian Islamic architects. In this paper, we try to describe the features of transparency by considering of this parameter in modern architecture. After all, transparency in Iranian Islamic architecture is based on the concepts explained. With this method, the use of transparency in each of these eras has been explained and then used in a timeline, and finally examined the evolution of this application.
About achievement of this study to previous examples can be cited to this point what›s that Spatial transparency in the evolution of Iranian architecture introduced by Hadi Mirmiran, which means increased space and reduced material is on properties of Literal transparency more and based on the theory of modernism and is similar to Bruno Zevi,s view.
While results of this study, in addition to the above, in Iranian Islamic architecture, phenomenal transparency and semantic transparency are more and existence of major mental clarity (not objective). In the Iranian Islamic architecture and contrary to the last ones, we can give a hint, that the explanation of Iranian architecture with the modern architecture’s language instead of its Islamic and Iranian language is so wrong. Actually we ignore and connive at some parameters by this viewing. In fact, with dealing like visual material these concepts, a lot of deep cultural concepts in Islamic architecture will be ignored.
 

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One of the most important issues and human needs in the field of architectural design is "housing". From the past to the present, there have always been different principles for housing design that have been used due to the user’s needs. The set of needs and lifestyles of humans has shown that some characteristics are the same in all designed houses. These important features had been collected in many scholarly and professional architectural references that had been addressed as principles, criteria and indicators of housing design and had been used by designers and researchers who works in this field. Therefore, various references can be found that, each had studied hosing topic from a specific point of view. Some of these sources list the general characteristics of an appropriate and desirable house, and others introduce specific principles for its design. In this article, while reviewing those references, we would rank those principles on the basis of importance. The main question is how these principles can be ranked and consider in design in base on their importance. Therefore, our goal is surveying the scholarly and professional architectural references about housing to analyze and evaluate the principles of residential architecture. Results of this research collected from data analyses and data description, which obtain from the references and based on logical reasoning. Therefore, the main method is determining quantitative valuation for qualitative data, and housing design criteria in scholarly and professional architectural references had been ranked in such a way that their importance is defined. so, the general approach of the research was selected as a quantitative comparison and then data collection, classification and analysis were performed based on first step. Finally, the research results represent and rank housing design criteria based on the priority of their importance in form of tables and charts.