Architecture, Land, and Man Rereading, reviewing and criticism of Pirnia’s suggested principles for Iranian architecture

Mohammad-Karim Pirnia, one of the most prominent scholars of the history of Iranian architecture, has recorded two major achievements: the principles of Iranian architecture and the stylistics of Iranian architecture. In this article we will discuss his suggested principles for Iranian architecture. For this purpose, we will first show how his five principles have evolved and completed through time. Then we will refer to his words about each of the principles we have gathered from the original source but widely spread and will present them in an integrated and coherent form. In another section of the article, we will deliberate upon the entirety of these principles and evaluate their worthiness in characterizing Iranian architecture. We will strive to study and review Pirnia’s motivations for proposing them, their underlying assumptions, and their tacit implications. In the end we will show that the current order and content of these principles have both internal and external dimensions whose appearance was necessitated by his time. One may argue that such principles are no longer suitable or credible for contemporary Iranian architecture. However reviewing the internal dimension of these principles is a valuable element for identifying and understanding the Iranian architecture in the context of the Iranian culture. In this case, we will be able to reread Pirnia’s principles and use them to serve as vehicle for improvement of research on the history of Iranian architecture and its development.