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Iranian architecture in Europe Morphology of Foroughi’s and Darvish’s works / Tarkalam, Ghazaleh. - (2025 Sep 15).

Iranian architecture in Europe Morphology of Foroughi’s and Darvish’s works

TARKALAM, GHAZALEH
2025
15-set-2025
This doctoral research investigates how architects express and carry cultural identity across geographical and cultural boundaries through architectural design. The study centers on the work of Mohsen Foroughi and Jahangir Darvish, two prominent Iranian architects whose careers extended from Iran to Europe. It explores how their design decisions reflect cultural values, respond to environmental conditions, and meet user needs in diverse settings. Although previous literature has offered meaningful historical and stylistic insights into their work, existing studies have been largely descriptive and narrow in focus. Most rely on qualitative interpretations of individual projects, with little attention given to broader patterns or measurable design strategies. There has been a clear lack of structured, comparative, and evidence-based research that identifies the specific design elements shaping their architectural language, especially across different cultural contexts. This study addresses that gap by analyzing how these architects preserved and adapted Iranian architectural identity when designing in Europe. Rather than focusing on isolated case studies or symbolic readings, this research examines the morphological characteristics of their work to uncover consistent formal strategies. It investigates how these elements appear in both Iranian and European contexts, which design factors have the most influence when carried across borders, and how cultural and environmental considerations interact in their design logic. The aim is not only to understand what these architects designed, but how and why certain decisions were made, and how those decisions express broader patterns of identity, adaptation, and intention. A mixed-method approach was used, combining qualitative analysis with structured expert input and quantitative validation. Twenty design factors (spanning technical, human, and environmental categories) were identified and refined through three rounds of the fuzzy Delphi method. These findings were then tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine the strength and direction of relationships between key variables. The research revealed that seven factors had the greatest influence in shaping their work, particularly in European contexts. Among them, attention to user needs, understanding of local culture, climate consideration, and environmental sustainability were the most prominent. The statistical analysis confirmed that attention to user needs significantly improves cultural understanding, and that climate-sensitive design enhances environmental performance. Importantly, the study found that cultural factors had the strongest overall influence on their cross-cultural architectural decisions. In conclusion, this research shows that architecture is not just about form, it isabout people, memory, place, and adaptation. The works of Foroughi and Darvish demonstrate that cultural identity can be preserved, reinterpreted, and expressed through architecture, even in unfamiliar settings. Their projects in Europe were not simply modernist designs, but thoughtful reflections of Iranian values, translated with care into new contexts. By offering a structured and comparative model for analyzing architectural morphology across cultures, this thesis contributes both to academic knowledge and to the ongoing conversation about how we design with cultural integrity, environmental awareness, and human sensitivity in a globalized world. Keywords: Architectural Morphology, Iranian Architecture, Cross-cultural design, Mohsen Foroughi, Jahangir Darvish, Delphi method
Iranian architecture in Europe Morphology of Foroughi’s and Darvish’s works / Tarkalam, Ghazaleh. - (2025 Sep 15).
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11591/571724
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