Improving the Efficiency of Teaching Architectural History

Presently, teaching history of Iranian and world architecture in universities is meant to introduce architectural products of the past. The contents and teaching methods employed do not make a clear relationship with the architectural practice of students. Although most of the courses in architectural schools are properly coordinated for teaching "architectural design", but there are two serious disadvantages: one, lack of attention to the "programming" phase, and the other, not taking advantage of architecture history to analyze valuable examples designed and built in the past. Both affect the future career of students. The present paper seeks to find: a suitable purpose and method for teaching architectural history; the benefits of studying Iranian and world architectural history; and ways to learn from past architecture for current students. This study employs logical reasoning with an analytic-interpretive approach. The hypothesis is that in architecture, "method of construction" is that which is linked with history, and "method of design" or "how space is organized" is that which goes beyond time. Despite all efforts to distance from architectural heritage, we can still learn valuable design lessons from the history of architecture. Analysis of spatial patterns and spatial organization models seen in architectural designs of the past can be used to instruct architectural design. The present study refers to an example of such patterns and then proposes a strategy for teaching architectural history to make it applicable for architecture design.