Babak Ashtari - PhD Candidate, Architectural design, modeling and fabrication lab, Department of Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
Mansour Yeganeh - Assistant Professor, Architectural design, modeling and fabrication lab, Department of Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

This qualitative documentary paper focuses theoretically on determinants of architectural concepts, namely certain agents that help advance the ‘process of conceptualization’. Cineplexes, namely contemporary cinema complexes are fertile ground of study in terms of their determinant agents of architectural concepts, due to an extreme combination of diverse functions within a small plot of land. Tehran has seen major instances of such multiplexes being set up in recent years. Despite the potentialof these cases for their informative architectural concepts, however, they have not yet been properly studied. Given this shortcoming, the main aim of this paper is to examine, through a precise theoretical framework, the determinants of architectural concepts in some instances of Contemporary cineplexes in Tehran. Analytical components of theoretical framework derived from Broadbent and McGinty models, and for cases, Azadi, Mellat and Charsou Cineplexes were selected. The data collection was performed through the literature survey and document analysis and qualitative descriptive-analytic method was used for data analyzing. Findings demonstrated that, due to the complicated program of cineplexes, which is an inherent feature of such multiplexes, among the analytical components of the theoretical framework, the most dependent determinants of the program, namely 'Functional organization' and 'Direction of the subject movement in space,' play the most critical role in the development of architectural concepts.

Architectural concept, Determinant agent of architectural concept, Process of Conceptualization, Contemporary Iranian architecture, Cineplex