Explaining the Role of Legibility in the Physical Identity of Residential Houses in the City of Khorramabad (1925–1979)

Abstract

The house is recognized as a cultural and social setting within human societies, and explicating its various dimensions can contribute significantly to improving the quality of human settlements. In this regard, the present study addresses one of the identity-related components of architectural form and seeks to clarify its position. The research methodology adopts a mixed-method approach based on descriptive–analytical analysis and logical reasoning. The statistical population consists of residential houses in the city of Khorramabad during the Pahlavi period, spanning the years 1925 to 1979, from which a number of houses were selected through purposive sampling as the study sample. These houses were analyzed in terms of the legibility component using UCL Depthmap software. The objective of the study is to examine architectural transformations in Lorestan during the First and Second Pahlavi periods and to identify the factors influencing the formation of architectural identity in Lorestan during the Pahlavi era, with particular emphasis on the component of legibility. Accordingly, the study seeks to answer the question of what position the component of legibility held in the architectural transformations of residential housing during the First and Second Pahlavi periods. The findings indicate that spatial legibility is not merely a physical attribute but rather a language for expressing architectural identity. Depending on the type of spatial organization of each house, this language is sometimes articulated through the vocabularies of “transparency” and “coherence,” sometimes through the concepts of “privacy” and “introversion,” and at other times through a subtle combination of both, thereby revealing its physical identity. Therefore, it can be asserted that spatial legibility is not only an indicator for architectural analysis but also one of the key means of understanding the cultural and social transformations of the period under study.