Navid Ganji

The Question “what and how is a good Architecture?” has always been challenged during centuries. It has been one of the main questions of all architectural and urban communities with their variable intellectual scales and different public opinions all over the world. Besides, the answer has widely affected the society in every historical era depending on their organization systems and general policies. “Today, Iranian society is confronting a disorganized architectural condition”, asserted by majority of Iranian experts and scholars. However a significant number of Iranian professional architects and urban planners are seriously trying to have a good impact on their national urban and architectural image, the lack of public awareness about the essence of a ‘good architecture’ has become a fundamental barrier hindering architects and planners from reaching this purpose. Institute for strategic studies in Iranian Architecture, as an independent research center, aiming its objectives to enhance informing people and doing researches to promote public knowledge and thoughts in the field of architecture, has decided to set a long-term Research-based Cultural programme, known as “The good Architecture”. The institute is trying to rebuild the urban culture and create a public awareness about architecture according to ‘good architecture’ program within the context of Iranian national architecture through research, drawing people’s attention to the subject, and the process of culturalisation. The good architecture programme as a widespread project having programmed in several levels accompanied by a variety of activities, and focusing on general public (with the leading role of architects and urbanists), tries to increase public awareness about the meaning, quality, and essence of ‘good architecture’. The institute aims to collaborate with both individuals and legal entities so as to make the architectural and urban environment a noticeable issue of people’s very day life.

What is “Good Architecture”?

Good architecture in general has no meaning. It is always related to your ideas, criteria, life values, your social ideology, your aims and goals. It has to do with your beliefs, also whether you follow right or left political wings. It has to do with your sense of humanities, if you care for poverty, hunger and disease. Or if you are detached from the deprived (society) and that your only aspiration is to gain fame, success and money. It has also to do with the notion of having mastered your ego, or if your inner wishes is to make everything everyday bigger, wider, more notorious.

we all want to do social architecture, human architecture, to reach sustainability, to care for poor people, to provide enough life insurance, to do non polluting constructions, to use appropriated materials, to provide aesthetics through spheres of the real perceptive environment, and so on…

What a good architecture must comprehend:

1-The sense of Beauty.

Architecture is an art. Therefore it must project a great expression of an accomplished art where proportions, measures, colors are well balanced.Aesthetics must be omnipresent in every angle and view.It is through beauty that people could discover properly spirituality.

2-The sense of order

Everything must be in position to provide a sense of order in volumes and spaces. This does not mean symmetry- On the contrary the order of breaking symmetry for achieving a dynamic diverse order in places and spaces.Order is the inner structure of the mind. It is the way of reasoning the everyday facts of life. It is the road of wisdom to acquire intelligence and wisdom. It is the way of placing each element in the right place at the right time.

3-Geometry

This is the tool of architecture. In geometry one can find the dialogue of things

in relation with each order. Every point of a geometrical setup has a projected resonance somewhere in space. Geometric points, when correctly placed create a sense of place belonging, which can be unique. You play with geometry like the musician with notes or the painter with colors. It is the tool, which gives you light when you are lost in the obscure zones of your projection. It is the tool which gives you the power to travel beyond the measurable (dimensions, shapes) and go through the immeasurable, our perceptive apprehension.

4-Light

Must be in dialogue with volumes and spaces. Must emphasize the essentials,Light is a basic tool for emphasizing the importance of special places.

5-Drama

It must create a sense where a human being starts to feel the spirituality of heaven, the meaning of life, birth and death. It is the time you discover the true essence of life by the way of configuration of places and spaces. Architecture must move you, must make you cry and has the role of correcting your distorted views by offering exquisite perspectives of heavenly beauty.

6-Innovation

Each artwork must add something to human civilization, something new that can help others to dig more through this passage of higher meanings. It is through that window that, an entity must be progressive in its resources, construction and aesthetics.

6-Humanity / Culture

Every artwork must help the society to elevate itself in the higher spheres of civilization. It must have a living dialogue with people and receptivity among them, not for resuming tradition but by the way of transfer of culture to new expressions of creativity. Austerity and modesty must remain the keywords.

(That is why deconstruction and other kinds of new western exuberance cannot fulfill a proper reception in eastern cultures and civilization).