Identity of Place, Considering Place as Assemblage in the Case of Mortafa Housing Complex, Iran

Approaching the concept of ‘place’ as an assemblage of people, constituents, links and relations, this study is focused on one of the most symbolic high-rise mass housing complexes in Iran, ‘Mortafa Housing’ and its multilayered context, in order to propose a way for revealing the ‘identity of place’, while the concepts of ‘identity’ is also considered as an ongoing assemblage. Scholars have tried to investigate the identity of built environment, considering it as an outcome or process. However, the new conception of ‘place identity’ as a multi-folded assemblage is beyond the dialectic oppositions and able to merge the binaries such as fixed/changing, process/entity, tangible/intangible or material/immaterial. The complicated notion of place identity as a multi-layered and multi-scale assemblage, which is always in the process of ‘becoming’, cannot be reduced to the mere physical features or visual characteristics of place. Instead, the research tries to emphasize on a holistic and ontological understanding of place identity, which can only be discussed through the linkages, relations and connections in different layers, scales and dimensions of place. By comparing the becoming processes of the case and its context, ‘place identity as assemblage’ provides a better understanding of the case, its contexts and possible challenges in between. Therefore, the transformation of Mortafa housing identity is explored throughout its long lifetime and based on a triangular mixed methodology of phenomenology, discourse analysis and spatial analysis. Final findings of the research are divided to methodological remarks, theoretical findings and case study results. The most important finding is the new approach towards ‘identity of place’, which is more close to people’s perception, experience, and expression.