ATMOSPHERE IN PERSIAN ARCHITECTURE
The article begins with how the theory and practice of Iranian art and architecture are out of proportion in terms of both quantity and quality, and how this has led some to try to compensate for the lack of theory by articulating Persian architecture in terms borrowed from elsewhere and alien to the inner logic of that architecture. Examples are cited of how such ‘lack of theory’ was at certain times intentional on behalf of Iranian artists and architects, and how more coherent and meaningful explanations for this style of art can be found in Persian poetry rather than philosophy. The text explains how Persian architectural literature will start to make more sense when read from the viewpoint of architectural atmosphere taken as a kind of poetics. It continues by a study of literary examples showing how ‘haal’ (the Persian equivalent of the term ‘atmosphere’) is an untranslatable term with a myriad of semiotic layers that are relevant and essential for a coherent and meaningful reading of Persian architecture.The essay argues that the term cannot be reduced to a modernist understanding of ‘space’, nor the postmodern notion of ‘place’, nor the contemporary concept of ‘atmosphere’. It is rather marked by a defiance towards theatricality and representation but closely connected with a specific understanding of introversion in architecture resulting from a carefully choreographed relationship between the individual and the collective.