Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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Immovable inscriptions are considered as one of the most important works and among the historical documents in cultural assets of our dear country, which were installed on selected parts of historical buildings and outstanding monuments and were always noticeable. The role of inscriptions as the basic and effective tools is important in terms of manifesting and implication of educational and educative also the identity, construction date, founder, names of masters and artists of the building, especially its architect, and other information that may change based on the importance and situation of the building. The inscriptions show an integration of other arts, the most important of which is calligraphy and we can find its importance in the verses descended to our prophet (Muhammad, peace be upon him) -the first in Alagh Chapter the first chapter descended to prophet- that reminds the human that from whom has he learned writing and the second in Ghalam Chapter, swear to pen and what it writes. In this study, we intend to have a research about immovable inscription documents of Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex using descriptive- analytical method documented by field studies and have a review on importance and characteristics of script and calligraphy in bringing inscription art to its highest peak and decipher the contents hidden in them. Here, Tabriz Historic Bazaar with the area of more than 27 hectares and more than 160 architectural elements is the greatest national registered work and the largest brick conjunct roofed historical complex of the world (registered in World Heritage List of UNESCO as “Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex” in 2010). Tabriz Bazaar as a complete urban block (with different commercial, religious, cultural, educational, health, sport and residential complexes) is a unique sample of urban development elements of Islamic era. As most of famous historians and tourists have described it and told. Marco Polo reports on variation of goods and commodities made in Tabriz in the second half of Hijri century (1271) and mentions the great hidden wealth in Tabriz Bazaar and continues the residents of Tabriz made their living through trading and providing of different commodities. Beside the historical documents we witness the stone, plaster and tile inscriptive documents in different parts of Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex that prove the identity and authenticity and existence of the complex with their different contents. These inscriptive documents have an important role in saving of information and communication of thoughts, ideas and human civilization from previous generations to the present generation. So, the described importance of deciphering of inscription documents’ contents as immovable documents in Tabriz Historic Bazaar resulted in making a research on them in order to analyze their contents and concepts beside documentation of their shapes. On the whole, the thing that expresses the contents and concepts of an inscriptive document is detected through an intermediate art called “script”, which is in fact an art or tool to register and write the mentalities and thoughts using the signs that are familiar to eyes. In fact, from the moment that human attempted to draw what he thinks, he took steps to the world of script and writing, from the paintings on the walls of caves up to Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic lines and its evolution during the history until invention of script and calligraphy and transferring it on inscription documents. The scripts used on Iranian inscription documents are divided into two categories: script in pre-Islamic era and script after accepting Islam by Iranians. The inscript documents studies here are relevant to the second type of script (script after accepting Islam). This study deals with deciphering of the shape and contents of inscript documents and their concepts and a description of the building, place of installation of inscript documents and deciphering of their contents are hinted in this study and the results obtained from analysis are mentioned. The present research is a field study and deciphering of forms are conducted using “Charmebardari” -a technique for primary sampling of designs and scripts of inscriptive documents and architectural decorations- at the end using computer software. At the end the results obtained from interpreted concepts of inscriptive documents’ deciphering contained very important and valuable information about the society at the time of creating that inscription document which can be categorized in two groups: the first group encompasses the spiritual concepts and the second group encompasses the applied concepts and each group is divided into subgroups and components (diagram1). Drawing the analytical diagram of the mentioned concepts we can clearly understand the existence of precise principles and order, which are intelligently applied in management of cities during Islamic era and have shown the society a transcendental way with wisely integration (in spiritual and applied concepts) of world and other worldly issues in order for accomplishment of those objectives taking advantages of the primary and basic principles of Islam. Here, the religious architecture, as a whole, and inscriptive documents, as a part of it, have been able to be a manifestation of God in the space of Islamic architecture with their dual application both in their own nature and with words contained in them.

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One of the symbols and symptoms that identify Islamic civilization is the Islamic Urbanization as a place for dwelling and activity. Urban areas and structures by manifestation of custom values should identify society’s civilization. And help them to achieve their purposes and ambitions. an Iranian Muslim architect ‘s belief has always been a priority for all of his works And to create his works all functional rules are under consideration of his belief principles. One of these belief principles is subjectivism and privacy life. As from the long past we see tendency to covering in Iranian civilization and tradition and one of the beliefs of Iranian is importance of privacy and indoor life. Subjectivism meaning is related to man placement in Islamic thought. Islam has always wanted mankind to recognize its essence and its identity as a god created. Because in this case man can recognize it’s high values and it’s prominent place in this world. That’s why the Quran introduces human mind as a special cognition resource and express that who has known its god, has known itself. So Islam wants people to pay attention to their indoor and behave without any trace of Self-glorification also prevent people including man and woman of showing themselves by a pretense. As we mentioned, most of the time Iranian’s believes and cultures influence on their architecture. So we see manifestation of subjectivism in Iran traditional architecture elegantly that it has impressed significantly on space organization and also on planning different functions on sites. Subjectivism as a feature that presents in buildings such as houses, mosques, schools and public bathrooms, generates from philosophy - social principles of this country. For example in these houses we have indoor and outdoor yards. Indoor yards separate private life from the public one. This organization has been possible by arraying rooms around the yard and also separating men living space from women living space. With respect to these principles we can see private, semiprivate, public and semipublic realms. We can infer that in Iranian architectural culture essence and man indoor has the actual value and the outer shell is protecting this reality.

In this article our research method is Qualitative. And By studying Islamic texts and documents related to the study conducted by the Iranian market and urban spaces, we are going to express individual and social points of subjectivism. And it’s manifestation in Iranian bazaars. So in the first step we study Islamic texts and investigate documents related to this topic and specify the research principles and processes. Then we try to analysis the factors that lead Iran traditional bazaars to subjectivism and study how these factors effect on bazaar’s functions. The Hypothesis proposed is that, the influence of subjectivism is not merely on our architecture, but also it influences on people behavior patterns in urban spaces.

Bazaar is one of these urban spaces that means place to buy and sell goods. In fact bazaar is a place to exchange and it has been organized by a human activity. So bazar has a both economic and cultural and social aspect that has formed cultural interactions between citizens from the past. These interactions and behaviors are different in every culture. Finally we will approach to factors, effecting the Iranian bazaar’s introversion in both the humanity and social aspects. Factors such as privacy and the need for solitude and privacy for those in the bazaar so that unlike the function of western street as a place for staying together and looking at people and being looked at by people, our urban streets in Iran often have been places for seeing people and not having desire to be looked at by others. This is a kind of privacy that is a personal right for everyone. Prohibition of causeless attendance in public areas in Islamic texts view is one of the reason that our sidewalks have become a place to move currently and cause to minimize the time spent in these spaces. People do not spend in this space for a long time and that’s why they feel that they don’t have any ownership in this place and they are not belonged to urban spaces. On the other, they feel comfortable at their homes and do their necessary activity related to outdoor and hope to come back at home, where they have it as a private realm. As we said, our sidewalks have become a place to move currently and not a place to stop, to eat or speak for a long time. The low width of the bazaars and lack of space to sit in them confirm this. As in the days of holding, that there were crowds in sidewalks, people moved difficultly. Years ago especially at night’s people rarely were passing in urban streets, it shows those nights and days passes effects urban designs. In Islam spending time with family members at nights is more desirable than spending nights out with others. That’s why Iranian bazaars have been  more active in days in compare with nights and also were  a place for exchanging activities more than leisure and exhibitive. Stability and strength of the family has an important place in the Islamic value. and also the value which Islam serves for family and its people and introduce it as a place for relaxation and comfort, make our home a holy place that should have a private realm for its members.. This caused many religious orders in Islam texts. So we see that the kindness and leisure activities would be with family members more than people who we know out in the society. These activities done by family members, Strengthens the foundation of the family comes. Overall, Beyond the effect of introversion and it’s manifestation in architecture and structure, it effects on people presence in urban spaces such as bazaars. We infer that introversion or in a more accurate concept, human indoor or essence has deep sense in compare with its architectural meaning. Islam special respect and emphasis on internal states, is one of the reason to paying attention to humility and preventing from Self-glorification, Behaviors that influence on our urban streets. That we study about them in this article.

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The traditional Iranian bazaar is considered as a great example of Iranian art and architecture with a rich cultural heritage. This phenomenon of outstanding architecture, self-sustaining and coherent with the surrounding urban landscape, like other urban texture, has not been immune from the consequences of the transformation of modern life in its internal and peripheral arena. On the other hand, the transformation and creation of new structures for the survival of life of historical textures is essential. The concept of contextualism and its purpose in the historical context, based on the qualitative concepts of the creation of a living, coherent and dynamic, is based on the need to recognize and emphasize the extraction of the texture pattern language for structural and functional cohesion in peripheral development. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the degree of coherence of new structures on the continuation of the traditional texture life of the traditional bazaar in order to analyze the heterogeneity of infill buildings in the historical context of the Iranian-Islamic city and criticize the existing context, first, with a descriptive-analytical method, on traditional Ardabil bazaar as a case study. Then, in order to answer the question of the extent of the infill coherence effect as a context-oriented parameter on the continuity of the pattern language as a characteristic of context survival, field survey, as well as the questionnaire as a tool for collecting information and SPSS software as an analysis tool, and data evaluation were used. By developing the hypothesis that there is a significant relationship between the amount of context-oriented contemporary infills and the survival of the traditional bazaar context, the research begins qualitatively and to test, the continuation of the traditional bazaar is dependent variable and the degree of contextualism between the infills is the independent variable. First, qualitative studies are conducted based on deductive reasoning and field studies, and then the results are quantified by presenting a questionnaire and examining the views of the resident business people who have at least two generations of bazaar presence, as well as those of contemporary merchants and experts.
The findings in the first section show that the powerful functional-physical centersare of scale that create the pattern of the life of different structures. In the case of the traditional Ardebil bazaar,it is in accordance with the three macro, middle and macro scales, indicate the highest quality of life and it brings forth the semantic coherence of the unified and dynamic Islamic worldview in the structure of the traditional bazaar. The findings in the second part indicate a general lack of coherence between contemporary infills in the 2 nd grade zone of the traditional Ardebil bazaar. Also,it shows that   structural integrity, visual coherence and spatial integrity variables have a direct and significant effect on the dependent variable of the physical life of the traditional bazaar ,and  the activity coherence variable and the cognitive integration of the new building as a predictor variable on the functional life of the traditional bazaart. Therefore, dealing with concepts such as scaling and scale distribution, necessity to go beyond the strictly limited use of the brick and the limited height of the building and the window frame in the traditional bazaar becomes vital to consider, so that deep concepts of the language of the texture pattern can be continued and the new recommendations for design identity in the historical context can be created for designers to emphasize "modeling" rather than "formalism".

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Problem statement: The concept of resilience has long been published to explain how different types of systems respond to unexpected shocks, and research on resilience of environments to abnormal hazards has just begun, requiring extensive reflection and consideration. Spatial resilience thinking is as one of the new dimensions in the field of resilience and architecture. This dimension seeks to address the issue of the vitality and dynamics of the architectural space by preserving identity and function through attention to specific characteristics and capabilities of the space over time versus gradual and slow disturbances. resilient space as the appropriate context for possiblity continued vitality provides dynamic while maintaining performance; It shows little vulnerability in the face of crises over time by the spatial capabilities, and responds to changing conditions through adaptation to the needs and demands of the society, and satisfies spatial users' satisfaction with different tastes and guarantees and sustains the vital system of space. But most of the newly constructed spaces are vulnerable to crises and lose their efficiency quickly and the users of space leave and vacate; Therefore, the historical bazaars of Iran, as one of the valuable spaces that have continued to operate despite changes in different periods and have been able to meet and provide the suitable body for the needs of the day, are remarkable. Therefore, to resolve part of this epistemic vacuum, the present study focuses on the limited domain of the Amir complex in the historical bazzar of Tabriz, considering its position and role in the life of the Bazzar Tabriz has paid off to the rooting of the resilience of this space and examining its spatial capabilities. So this research seeks to answer the question of how resilience has been achieved in the historical space of Iranian bazaars? And how has the resilience of the Amir complex in the historical bazzar of Tabriz come about in light of the changes in recent years?
 

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In the present study, in order to explain the desirability of the soundscapes of the Timchehs of Tabriz Bazaar, Sound Pressure Level (SPL) and Reverberation Time (RT) have been measured as objective variables of acoustic behavior. Using descriptive questionnaire, subjective assessments were used to determine the quality of soundscape. The research seeks to answer the question of how the spatial characteristics of Tabriz Bazaar Timchehs affect their acoustic behavior and what factors are involved in the desirability of their soundscapes. Findings show that small-scale domes act as cavities with the retention of sound waves and have a good effect in reducing RT. Glass surfaces with sound reflection increase the echo of the environment and reduce the acoustic quality of the space. The materials used in Timcheh wall, brick with gypsum bonding, by diffusing sound waves play a positive role in acoustic quality. The results show that although the values of SPL and RT, which indicate the acoustical behavior of space, are somehow involved in the perception of people from the soundscape, but alone cannot be the basis for assessing the quality of the soundscape. The environmental characteristics and qualities of the spaces such as geometric proportions, dynamics or statics and the amount of congestion have a direct effect on the pleasantness of the urban soundscape in three Timches of Amir-e Shomali, Amir and Mozaffarieh. These three timches are part of tranquil spaces, and for this reason, the sudden appearance of some sounds, due to the difference in SPL, directly has a negative effect on the quality of the soundscape. Therefore, it is suggested that a component called Urban Soundscape Clarity be added to the studies in this field and be considered in the evaluation of soundscapes of tranquil urban spaces