Syntactical analysis of the evolution of main living space in Iranian Tabriz houses

Iranian domestic architecture, which can be traced back to the last 8000 years, has been falling into oblivion for the last century. Traditional Persian architecture went into a transformation process from the middle of 19th century, when Naser al-Din Shah Qajar met western architecture, and afterwards, the process continued with the technical and stylistic developments in 20th century. The precursor of this transformation can be found in former political and military events. In the Battle of Chaldiran between Safavids and Ottomans in 1514, and the battle between Safavids and Portugueses in Persian Gulf, the Persian army fought with traditional weapons, while their enemies had modern ones. The defeats in these battles persuaded the Persian Shahs that they should follow the western world. They modernized their army with the assistance from Russia and England. The relationships established with the west through military and political channels improved in the fifty-year-period of Naser al-Din Shah, and resulted in the westernization of the country (Ghobadian, 2004). Westernized lifestyle transformed socio-cultural, economic and spatial aspects of the society. This thesis focuses on the transformation of domestic architecture, the breaking points in this process, and their causes in the context of central space tradition in Tabriz houses. This research analyzes the chronological development and transformation of central space in the houses built in Tabriz, from traditional houses to first modern residences and to apartment houses. A subject of the research is the importance and development of Revak in traditional houses, and its disappearance in the later architectural practices. The transformations in the relationships among yards, revaks and main living spaces, private spaces, service spaces and transition spaces in in the evolution from traditional Tabriz house to modern residence and to apartment houses are analyzed. One of the main aims of the thesis is to explore the relationship between spatial organization and social structure. In this context, the case includes the analysis of traditional houses, modern houses and apartment houses from 19th to 20th century in Tabriz, Iran. The main hypothesis of the research is that cultural transformations influence and determine spatial organization of the houses. This hypothesis is tested with the data from archives, building survey drawings and interviews with architects and contractors. The building plans are syntactically analyzed with the use of Spatial Syntax method. The software Syntax 2D is used to get syntactic values of 30 sample buildings spaces, such as mean depth, integration, compactness, connectivity, isovist area and isovist perimeter. The reciprocal relationship between social structure and space, and basic invariables of spatial configurations are revealed by spatial syntax theory. How the morphology of the house and spatial elements is transformed by social, political and cultural factors is analyzed syntactically. In this context, spatial behavior theory and syntactic theory are used to explore human behaviors and spatial elements. With the help of this method, Tabriz houses are considered as three separate periods. The first period between 1800 and 1960 Qajar and the first Pahlavi period traditional houses, the second period between 1940 and 1960, the second Pahlevi and the Islamic Republic low-rise houses were discussed. In the post-revolution period between 1990 and 2010, apartment houses in the Islamic Republic period were investigated. The aim of this research is to understand the logic behaind organization of spaces and the morphological characters in traditional, modern row houses and apartment houses of Tabriz by analysing plans from1900 to 2010 period. Then we can understand the changes of size or location of spaces and continuty of use of spaces and organization between spaces periods. The thesis refers to well accepted researches on local architectural examples in traditional Tabriz houses. The residential typology of the city and their socio-cultural contexts in transition to modern houses and apartment houses are studied in terms of Spatial Syntax and Privacy theories. Most of the drawings used were made by the author by surveying the buildings. The oldest and richest photography archive of Cedidülislam Photography Studio was scanned for old city and residence photographs. Architects, contractors and civil engineers who witnessed the transformation in Tabriz were interviewed on the transformations of spatial organizations of houses, and the causes of these transformations. Thirty examples ordered chronologically were analyzed in three periods and six functional areas. The data analyzed are also given in mean values. The six functional areas are outdoor transition space, indoor transition space, social space, private space, kitchen and service space. These spaces are analyzed and sorted according to their depth and integrity from traditional houses to apartment houses. The spaces which preserved their syntactic characteristics and which were transformed are explained. Thus, according to the results obtained from the syntactic analysis, it was revealed that the houses of Tabriz had the highest integration value in the traditional periods and the open transition spaces are the shallowest places of the houses. Therefore, the other spaces of the house are located around hayat and we see that the depth and privacy in the passage towards the interiors are increased. In the same way, we see that the importance of open spaces and the centrality feature continue in the second period low-rise houses. As a result, the middle hall that provides service and private spaces has become the most shallow and integrated space. In the apartment houses, the central hall has been replaced by the entrance hall and the corridor. For this reason, it is seen that from the large traditional houses with hayat to the apartments, houses have become more linear and the living areas are located around the corridor. The main changing points in this research are very important and they show the changes and transformation of the spaces in Tabriz houses. The first and the main one is the change of the size of lands and decrease of land areas from 2000-1000 square meters to 600-200 square meters by 1969 regulations which has effected the plan sizes and characteristics of spaces. On the other hand, 1993 law about the permission to apartment buildings is another point of change between the traditional and modern houses. The other important parameter is the technological development such as heating system of houses from stove to central heating systems by radiator, building structure systems from masonry to steel or concrete and the use of television which affected the arrangement of furniture in the living spaces of the houses. Socio-cultural changes in society such as population growth, immigrations to cities, modernizations and decrease in family size during Pahlavi Dynasty and after that during Islamic Republic the religious roles importance in daily life and restrictions of women in society have changed the character of open spaces, semi open spaces, guest room and living room, which were the main characteristics spaces of traditional houses but during modernization they have lost their importance in spatial configuration. In this study by using space syntax methodology we are going to study these changes and their effects on Tabriz houses space arrangements.