From apprentice to academic educationAlthough architecture has been an ancient art with a long history, academic architectural education is a comparatively new phenomenon. For many centuries architects were qualified in an educational process which included many years of training as assistants or apprentices in actual practice of architecture and construction. Architecture was not regarded as a completely independent profession until recent centuries, while dominance of styles and sluggish transformation of architectural requirements – from both functional and aesthetical points of view – would make it more practical for many talented people to work as architects too. Industrial revolution and its consequences accelerated changes in entire human life and subsequently necessitated radical changes in architecture. In this new situation architecture would also have to be categorized as an independent profession and academically taught according to the overwhelming tendencies towards specialization.
École des Beaux Arts, the first school of architecture that was opened in the early19th century in France set some standards for academic architectural education in many countries later on. The styles that were taught and promoted in Beaux Arts were later scattered and developed even in America. Academic education gradually turned into a basis for development of different theoretic schools of architecture. From 1919 to 1933 Bauhaus played an important role in formation of modern architecture, back to the time when Walter Gropius and his associates devised a system of education and practice in architecture which was gradually developed to the mainstream of modern movement in the following decades with the spread of Bauhaus ideas specially in American schools. The new trends in world architecture are now articulated in architectural schools to a large extent. For instance Architectural Association (AA) in London has been at the center of many new developments and changes in contemporary architecture, introducing numerous influential people to the global architectural scene.
The educational methods and syllabuses in different schools of architecture vary considerably in prominent academies throughout the world, as they are focused on different aspects of architecture according to their own principles, and students may have different options at hand, choosing the program that is more suitable for them. There are programs that are more or less focused on technical aspects of architecture, or alternatively pay more attention to artistic or theoretic features.
Iranian modernization and architectural education
Like other parts of the world apprenticeship has been the corner stone of architectural training in Iran for many centuries. The traditional architectural styles that have been dominant in each region were taught to the young apprentices through years of actual work. The relationship between master and apprentices could perhaps be compared to that in Sufism which was permeated with sincerity and respect, acknowledging the master as a spiritual mentor, and not merely a teacher.
The existence of schools such as the Nizamiyyah and The Academy of Gundishapur provide examples of academic institutions of science that date back to ancient times, however there is almost no trace of organized systems of architectural training before the nineteenth century in Iran as far as it is known. Although there is some scattered remaining literature about architecture, our information about the history of architectural developments and education is not really sufficient to depict a clear image of the past. Nevertheless it could be speculated that in a traditional context, with the entire information passing from a generation of architects to the next with slight transformations or changes, there has been basically no need for anything that could be named as an academy. As far as social expectations from architecture were answered with this system, it naturally remained in place and could ultimately provide the society with the architecture that could function perfectly at that time and build up a rich architectural heritage for next generations too.
It was from Qajar1 period that encounters with occidental societies infused new concepts into the whole Persian culture and subsequently modernization became a major subject of interest among the Iranian elite. Specifically after disappointing results in several battles between Persia and Russia, the necessity of modern sciences and technologies was felt by Persian rulers. Abbas Mirza2 was the first one to dispatch Iranian students to Europe for western style education. In 1815 Amir Kabir3 opened college of Dar al-Fonoun, where foreign teachers in several fields of science and engineering started to train students for different modern jobs. The technical methods to deal with urbanism and architecture were mainly taught at this college and were put into practice later on. Dar al-Fonoun can be considered as the first modern institution of higher learning that influenced architecture and its respective educational systems too.
In the early 1920’s the most significant period of modernization was started with Reza Shah. During the first Pahlavi period, Iranian architecture was going through a major struggle with the question of identity while modernization was on top of the agenda and Iranian government was trying to change the face of the country in swift moves. Architecture had to respond to these emerging demands, as infrastructures of industry and new styles of modern life were being introduced to the society. Many of the major buildings in this period were designed by non-Iranian architects, or Iranian architects educated in Europe who brought western architectural styles with themselves in many cases. This was an immense challenge for Iranian architectural tradition which had more or less maintained a consistent language throughout the history. After a period of western influence on Persian architecture during Qajars which was mainly about decorative elements, this was the time that architecture had to really adopt new functional aspects which were upheld as symbols of modernity. Train stations, hospitals, civic centers, governmental institutions, and other kinds of modern public functions that were introduced to the Iranian society for the first time, had to take the adopted standards, functional programs and subsequently aesthetic features of the original models in the west.
After the foundation of Tehran University in 1934, as one of the major moves towards modernization, Faculty of Fine Arts that included an architectural school was opened in 1941. The educational system of École des Beaux Arts was mainly adopted to set up the programs in this academy, like many other countries that had pursued this model. Gradually teachers who had been trained as architects in European or American schools joined this faculty and formed a collective range of educational staff.
This was the official end for the educational system which had trained Iranian architects for many centuries. With the start of academic education in architecture, the continuity of a tradition in architectural training was broken, while foreign styles of architecture were consequently infused into the local tradition and language of architecture that had more or less maintained a lucid and consistent character through centuries with gradual transformations and developments. The problematic preceding condition was a result of swift modernization that brought about urgent necessities for completely new spaces, in response to new technological requirements and emerging lifestyles.
As modernization project was pursued within the next decades, the cultural gap between the prosperous urban elite and people of under-developed portions of the society grew deeper and deeper. The flamboyant architectural styles and urbanism that were advocated in large cities widened this gap through their sharp contrast with rural spaces. This new urban space was mainly produced by architects who had been trained in modern educational system running in universities from 1940’s. Foreign architects and offices were also commissioned for major projects and this would also accelerate the process of modern transformations in urban planning and architecture.
Basically the deficiency of this modern educational system in Iran was laying in its inadequate communication with the society as a whole. The imported academicism that was not in direct contact and interaction with the social context, created a small group of elite who were supposed to reconstruct the country according to academic assumptions that were not basically aligned with local culture. As an instant result of modernization, urban spaces had developed new functions and energies that were in sharp contrast with those in the rest of the country. While a sense of deprivation was growing among people in under-developed portions of Iran, a small fraction of the whole society were enjoying the new space. Modern hospitals, schools, universities and recreational facilities grew to an integral part of urban life, while these services were not at hand for the majority of the country in small towns and villages. Apart from the mere functional advantages of large cities, the symbolic features of the architecture and urbanism as a window to an “other” unreachable world stirred up mixed feelings of love and hate towards this new urban space for a large portion of the society; a sort of tension that could be seen as a contributing factor to social fractures that ultimately resulted in 1979 revolution.
Promises of “Cultural Revolution” and Iranian architecture
Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the new government initiated a program of “Cultural Revolution” which was supposed to bring a radical change to all fields of culture and education. Universities were closed for a period of three years and a number of scholars and politicians hand-picked by Ayatollah Khomeini started to work on a new system that would eliminate the western aspects of education and create an Islamic cultural atmosphere in Iranian universities. After three years a uniform syllabus was devised and architectural academies were reopened in 1984. Different schools of architecture did not have the right to change any part of that syllabus and a certain set of standards was used in evaluation of education.
Although the basic structure of education was maintained, the new syllabus included courses on Islamic art, Islamic architecture, rural development planning, and other subjects that were added to mend the problems of previous educational program. Actually the basic intention to reinvigorate local culture in post-revolutionary Iran was superimposed on an educational structure which was not basically designed for that. Traditional methods of architectural training were an essential part of education in this field, which could not be reproduced in an imported modern academic program.
This was all happening in Iran, while postmodernism was gaining strength during 1980’s, and it was somehow a fashionable strategy in a problematic cultural situation such as that in Iran. As a country which inherits the achievements of Persians in distant past, and has developed much of the Islamic culture within the last fourteen centuries, contemporary Iran has been dealing with a major challenge to forge a national identity which embeds these characteristics in a modern context. Integration of historic references in architecture as one of the core concepts of postmodern architecture was an attractive subject for many scholars in those days. While contradictory elements of nationalism, Islamism and modernity have been the source of tiring conflicts amongst different cultural and political camps, postmodernism was delivering fresh promises for a potential fusion in architectural design, which was eagerly pursued by many of scholars and promoted in educational programs for sometime. After the wave of “Cultural Revolution” the Iranian architectural scene and academies were flooded with advocates of postmodernism who tried to stick the Modern Movement to Persian style Islamic architecture. In the absence of a well-built theoretic basis, which could lead to a more fundamental approach to this hectic condition, the “Iranian postmodernists” started to produce mimics of western postmodern architecture that amounted to catastrophic results in many cases.
There have been stern efforts to lead cultural policies in each of the abovementioned directions, while cultural targets including educational objectives have been shifting on this basis alternatively from time to time. “Identity” has been a recurring question for decades, and given the repeated historic ruptures and multiple cultural characters that are socially and ethnically involved, complexities that are somehow spectacular in case of Iranian culture have always made it almost impossible to reach an stable result which is naturally essential for a process of pragmatic decision making. Although the characteristics and incorporating factors of “national identity” have never been defined, the vague concept of “identity” has been usually effectual in the battle against the “new” even in cases without a radical approach. As a matter of fact intellectuals, cultural producers and politicians have perpetually denied the trends that have not been in line with their own attitudes towards conflicting paradigms of nationalism, Islamism and modernity.
With this backdrop of the so-called “identity crisis” which is a permeating chronic theme in cultural debates, and in absence of pragmatism which could lead to more realistically devised cultural policies, architectural education is accordingly disoriented and cannot easily respond to the perplexing cultural condition of the society. Apart from fundamental differences in academically promoted theoretic aspirations and the actual expectations of society from architecture, the current educational system is not capable of filling this gap, since it lacks programs to encourage genuine constructive contacts with the whole society. The ultimate determining factor for the quality of architecture and urbanism is the social “demand” which has developed in the opposite directions, compared with the academically advocated principles in Iran. Architectural education, on a public level that could happen through the media, is an ignored subject which could change this situation and fill this gap between architectural schools and the society.
Media as a public academy
The significant role of the media in cultural developments is an observable fact of everyday life that has been extensively discussed. A great deal of cultural policies in each society is about the media and the messages that they convey. The indirect and noncompulsory education that happens through the media, particularly the more powerful mediums such as television networks, is highly effectual in shaping the expectations of the society from architecture. In contemporary modern world, the ideal lifestyles are seen and chosen from the palette of images that people receive from the media, and architectural space, as a feedback, is the scene for realization of their models of choice. Architects are actually experts who can translate the ideals and aspiration of the society into the language of space, and therefore characteristics of architecture is basically associated with the overall cultural situation and subsequent altitudes of the society towards architecture, all of which are highly influenced by the media, as the public education system in our world.
The “Cultural Revolution” in post revolutionary Iran was also about revising the whole content of the media. While there are no private television networks in Iran, the head of IRIB (governmental TV) is a member of “The Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution”, which supervises all cultural programs according to the guidelines that are set by the leadership. This position demonstrates the importance of the media and specifically television networks in cultural policies of Iranian government. After the revolution removal of all western style contents was seriously pursued and especially within the first decade after the revolution, the contents of television programs were limited to productions of the Iranian television, or imported films from carefully selected sources, which did not convey images of western lifestyle as much as possible. This was exactly in the opposite direction with what was going on in the national television, before the revolution.
Although the “official” gates of information have been controlled, access to alternative media is getting increasingly pervasive in Iran. The Iranian society is now fed with an array of diverse and sometimes contradictory set of information and cultural codes that are embedded in “official” and “unofficial” mediums. Apart from governmentally controlled and supervised media, access to the Internet and “illegal” satellite television networks or DVDs are part of an information flow that are referred to as “cultural attack” in official Iranian literature. While the government is vigorously trying to control all information gateways, it has always proved to be a difficult, if not impossible task.
Regarding the information that are associated with architecture, the great difference of lifestyles that the majority of people experience in the public space of the Iranian society or as it is represented on the official media, with that in unofficial media such as satellite television networks is really significant. With the backdrops and perpetual alarms of “cultural crisis” and “cultural attack”, there is an under-skin tension generated through this considerable cultural multi-polarity that has been translated to architecture in existing urban fabrics and the average architecture in major Iranian cities. It might be arguably a period of transition towards a new multidirectional character in Iranian architecture which will ultimately negate the problematic question of “identity” through actual sedimentations of different cultural flows, or pessimistically analyzed, lead to a an ever-increasing chaos in Iranian architecture and urbanism. However academic and public educational or cultural programs that are associated with architecture will definitely play a major role in shaping this future.
Footnotes:
1- The Qajar dynasty was the ruling family of Persia from 1781 to 1925. The dynasty was founded in 1781 by Agha Muhammad Khan, of Iranian Turkmen descent.
2- Abbas Mirza (1789 -1833), was a crown prince of Persia, known because of his wars with Russia and the Ottoman Empire. He is most remembered for his valor in battle and his attempts to modernize the Persian army, unsuccessful due to the lack of government centralization in Iran during the era.
- Amir Kabir, also known as Mirza Taghi Khan Amir-Nezam, (1807 – 1852) was the chancellor of Persia under Nasereddin Shah. He is extensively respected as one of the most influential and positive characters of that era.
