Document Type : Thematic-analytical

Highlights

Introduction

A critical perspective to the social spatial influences of modernity has always pointed to the interruption between form & content in Iran. Architecture and urban scholars have referred to this phenomenon as a problem in dynamic changing process of spatial environment. The process of modern transformation of society, beginning mostly from the late nineteenth century,  has been continued with different quantities and qualities to the present time. Although social/gender relations and the spatial organization each experienced a break in their historical changing processes, they also seem to be losing their long-standing integration, within the whole social system of society.

Through a critical and multilayered social/spatial perspective, this study investigate this interruption again: why the physical space does not seem to correspond with the social/gender context in modernity? Has the historical integration regarding social/gender relations and living spatial patterns been lost? Is this really the case?

Materials and Methods

The present research, based on a documentary method, presents a new perspective – a commentary – on to the subject of study: gender and space relationships or form and function integration. Focusing on the process of change through a social cultural approach and based on Giddens’ theory of ‘social identity’ and Bourdieu's ‘distinction’, this study investigate again the matter of social/gender and spatial disconnection.

Discussion

Social spatial scholars look into the space by both its material and immaterial parts; the physical space, on the one side and human effects or the socio/cultural context on the other. Through an interactive relationships between space and socio/cultural forces it is argued that ‘space is socially produced, but that space is also a condition of social production’. In these approaches, people activities and their behavior in space identify the main part of space to the extent that space is meaningless without the presence of people and their acts and activities inside. Thoughts and knowledge, behaviors, activities, and ways of life, in one word, human “identity”, the social/cultural/gender identity, defines space. They are inherent and essential to the space. Human demands and concerns are being imprinted into the space, so space is being drawn by human identity. Thus, the way of understanding physical space, in this case, the physical space of modernity, is passing through the recognition of the modern human identity of this period, modern gender identity in this study.

Identity as a societal construct is the result of social processes and social factors. It is a fluid and variable concept that is developed through time and place, and by history and culture. In modern societies, Compared to traditional society with very little capture of previous elements prescribed by tradition, the individual encounters a variety of elements, material and immaterial, so identity becomes more fluid and unstable. These impacting plural and continuous elements, in fact these permanent various confrontations make modern human identity more multiplied, uncoordinated, and sometimes conflicting.

The same mentioned process has driven Iranian social identity since the beginning of the modern changes, about the great changing process of Iranian constitutional movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. New thoughts and attitudes for personal and social modernization arose within the traditional social context in relation to the external world. They gradually changed society and its relations. In this process of change the known dynamic elements of modernity have been always absent and the order of modernity has inevitably acted more on the level of forms, figures, symbols and external features. These conditions put modern identity in the context of society in an unstable challenging situation, involving contrary attitudes, beliefs, and life styles, a combination of modern and pre-modern lifestyles.

The greatest uncertainties regarding personal/social identity have occurred in the face of gender identity transformations. Struggling with patriarchal social relations, it has mostly begun since this time that creates endless challenges for personal/gender identity.

The same process occurred in physical space of architecture and urban structure as another social sub system. Since the beginning of modernity, new similar patterns of architecture and urban structure, have dominated the physical features of cities and even villages, resembling fashions. As these physical patterns were mostly similar in different social/cultural contexts of country, they couldn’t be matched with whole dimensions of different lives, specifically various gender relations. It means people of specific social/gender context live within spaces whose form is not born out of their specific relations. This situation gives this important mentioned impression that form and function, space and gender are no longer integrated, continuous and consistent.

What can explain the issue, is the social identity in the age of modernity. The identity which lives between old and new by feelings of conflict and internal contradiction. This social identity favors the modern lifestyle, as well as new architectural or urban patterns, either by traditional, modern or a hybrid behavior within. Although these spatial patterns have not been inhabited by all of the dimensions of their living context, they have that kind of desirability and responsiveness which has made them in demand.

Feelings of conflict and internal contradiction, the inherent part of the modern human experience, find an external image on the lifestyle, and in the form and shape of space as an indicator of the lifestyle, so modern space is the representation of transient mobile identities of modernity and its lifestyle.

The other important point is the normative and symbolic meaning of modern cultural goods and its importance in referring to social distinction regarding individual and collective identity. Architecture and urban spaces act as a cultural commodity. Those spatial features which are viewed as modern, subsequently become distinguished and symbol of modern identity. They are extensively built and used.

Conclusion

By definition, human attitudes, lifestyles, behaviors, and activities in the physical space, what is called the context of space, are inextricably linked to physical spaces. The important issue, often referred to as “the dissociation of the physical space from its social context” or regarding our concern here, “the disconnection of the physical space from its gender context” in the age of modernity, is the effect of modern social/gender identity. In this modern age, identity is fragmented, discrete, unstable, and plural, so this human identity favors the architectural or urban patterns regarded as discontinuous, incompatible, unsuitable, inappropriate and ugly. Although these spatial patterns have not been inhabited by all of the dimensions of their living context, they have had that kind of desirability and responsiveness that has made them in demand. In this way, they have partially obscured other individual or community needs and necessities, among them, important gender values. However, in recognizing the phenomenon it is important to understand that even if social/gender context differences cannot be manifested explicitly in the body of space, as demonstrated, but these social/gender aspects retain their existence, and they do not disappear, at least not simply, nor quickly. They leave their trace through the individual behaviors and their activities in space.

The widespread use of modern architectural patterns in different social, cultural and gender layers is based on the above-mentioned social/cultural tendency, the procedure that makes the spatial reaction of more traditional communities more flexible and associated with more reception. Presenting the images of being modern in current age is an important part of human/gender identity, even for those belonged to traditional groups. Gender identity by choosing and living in modern spaces, in private house or in public city, respond to its desire to be modern, nevertheless gender identity still interact with space but somewhat obscure and uneven. Thus modern form represents its respective context, though not explicit and clear as the past, and somewhat obscure and intricate. That is to say gender and space are still linked together.

• Architecture