Maryam Nikoofard; Zahra Ahari; Hadi Nadimi; Maryam Salem
Abstract
Abstract: The Sadrian School has a high potential to answer many questions in architecture. This study is an attempt to explain the architect's work based on the Sadrian School. The ...
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Abstract: The Sadrian School has a high potential to answer many questions in architecture. This study is an attempt to explain the architect's work based on the Sadrian School. The research method is to analyze, interpret and infer from Mulla Sadra's thoughts to explain the architect's task in different aspects. The architect's work is one of the three basic crafts; it meets the fundamental need for living places on different levels. Therefore, a system of concepts related to the architect, from craftmanship and purpose, encompassment and disposition, order and cause, and beauty and love, is extracted from Mulla Sadra's words and discussed.
As a purposeful creator, the architect has imaginal and intellectual forms of man's life and his acts. He tries to provide a place for living as a platform for doing different activities by the disposition of the environment and changing dimensions and relationships in nature. According to his existential level, the architect encompasses the world and recognizes causes and effects in the perfect system of existence. By dispositioning the environment to make a place for human life, he actualizes an order in nature that becomes the ground for humans and other beings to reach their desired perfection. By perceiving beauty and choosing the beloved, he regulates his intrinsic faculties. Through this inner order, the architect disposes and changes the world, and his activity becomes the manifestation of the beloved's perfect form, desirable attributes and actions.
Keywords: Architect's work, Mulla Sadra, Encompassment, Disposition, Causal order, Manifestation of love
Introduction:
Today architects do different activities, work on various scales and deal with different areas of knowledge and human work. Therefore, a question is posed: what does an "architect" really do? Architectural theorists with different philosophical views have addressed this issue. Mullā Ṣadrā's School of Thought provides a great ability to understand the architect's work. Although some efforts have been made to bring the ideas of the Sadrian School to architecture, there is no coherent conceptual system that can be used to explain the architect's work.
This research has relied on a general meaning of architecture as a work that provides a place for human life, inferred from Mullā Ṣadrā (Mullā Ṣadrā, 1376 SH). Creating a suitable place for life requires various knowledge and ways of changing the environment (Mullā Ṣadrā, 1379 SH). Therefore, we can discuss the different levels of an architect's work, with various purposes, in a conceptual system.
Method:
Mullā Ṣadrā has no distinct discussion about architecture. Therefore, this research tries to construct a system of primary and secondary concepts and their relations by logical argumentation based on Sadrian philosophy.
Findings:
In the first part, the architect is introduced through the main concepts of creator (Mullā Ṣadrā, 1382 SH), disposer and encompasser (Mullā Ṣadrā, 1368 SH). These concepts show how the work of an architect can be distinguished in purpose, material and form (Mullā Ṣadrā, 1382 SH).
The second part expresses how understanding the ordering of things, causes and effects (Mullā Ṣadrā, 1368 SH) can lead to encompassing and disposing of the environment to establish some order for human life (Mullā Ṣadrā, 1379 SH).
The final part brings the architect's work from a wise profession to a lovingly manifestation. The concepts of love, beauty and pleasure (Mullā Ṣadrā, 1368 SH) can show the different dimensions of the architect's existence and give his work a different meaning on each level.
Conclusions and discussions:
This research presents a conceptual system based on the Sadrian School to understand the architect's work in such a way that it includes the activities of different architects at various levels.
The architect's work is to provide a place for human life. By changing the measures and relationships in elements, materials and plants, architect preserves the human body and help flourish various human talents. To this end, the architect makes a thorough disposition of himself and the environment and tries to encompass different levels of existence and give an order to nature. The actualization of such an order in the best system of existence depends on the internal order of the architect's faculties and talents. What orders the architect inside is his perceptions, inclinations and beloveds.
On the one hand, based on an intellectual form of human life and activities, the architect devises a way to order the place of human life and determinates nature. Here, the architect's work relies on knowing the world in various levels of existence and man and his needs and wants in his existential journey. On the other hand, the architect's heartfelt attachments create a form of man and his desirable life in the architect's soul.
If the architect's beloved is his position and fame, he cares only about himself. As a result, the architect's desired form of human life will not include higher human wants. On a higher level, the architect wants the carnal self and the divine perfections of man and the flourishing of human potentialities. Eventually, the architect can reach a degree where he is sincerely passionate about bringing others a sensible and true life. Therefore, his governance is so comprehensive that it encompasses him, humans, and other creatures of nature. His ordinance in nature is so precise as to provide the desired order for everyone's life.
Sadrian School is about a journey, and the architect is always on the move. Suppose the architect orders his carnal desires in the direction of the true beloved, who is the manifestation of human perfection. In that case, he is moving from selfishness to altruism and divinity As a result, architects' work is approaching a more complete and beautiful order in providing a place for real human life.
References:
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Mullā Ṣadrā. (1366 SH). Sharḥ Uṣūl al-Kāfī (with the Glosses of ꜤAli Nūrī, ed. Muḥammad Khājavī). Tehran: Muʼassisa-yi MuṭāliꜤāt va Taḥqīqāt-i Farhangī [In Arabic]
Mullā Ṣadrā. (1422 AH). Sharḥ al-hidāya al-athīriyya (ed. Muḥammad Muṣṭafā Fūlādkār). Beirut: Muʼassisa al-Tārikh al-ꜤArabiyya [In Arabic]
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