TRANSPLANTATION BETWEEN WATER, ARCHITECTURE, AND TRADITION IN THE CENTRAL REGIONS OF IRAN

Extension of the central structure of Iran and existence of valuable erections inside it, peculiar climatic and architectural of hot and arid regions, forget and negligence of traditional architecture in these regions are of cases that reveal the importance of studying the architecture of the desert areas to everyone. On the other side, water has been considered in Iranian land as a valuable and honourable element and people have granted much value to it. Construction of glorious temples for the water gods can be cited as an evidence for this claim. Fatigueless Iranians during thousands of years and applying entirely their abilities have contributed to the development of this important matter to extract water from the deep inside of the land through boring well with the deepness thousands kilometres and to water thirsty deserts and farms. Architecture and water are complementary to each other for the people of desert, because water and architecture have always had a bilateral and significant relation with each other (water for architecture and architecture for water) and this is tangible from among the traditions of the desert people and the tradition of the desert people and their architecture. Architecture and construction has been meaningless without water and water has contributed to the comfort and welfare of the public beside architecture. Playing with water and existence of water pools and fountains inside homes, central yard of mosques and schools, beneath wind shields, cellars and other public interest erections on the one side and erection of valuable water erections such as water reservoirs, ducts, and Ice-Houses on the other side confirm existence of such bilateral relation. Ice-Houses are one of the erections found for the better use of water in most central points of Iran. Ice-Houses are composed of two main sections: cones and walls. Walls in winter are responsible to produce ice and to convert water to ice and cone is responsible to preserve ice from winter to summer. In other words, Ice-Houses are types of the old desert water architectures of Iran that were used for the production, preservation, and store of ice in the past. These erections are seen with relatively similar forms and completely identical applications in most semitropical points and all of them are made with adobe and clay materials and/or stratum. People of these regions have learned that they may not fight with desert for living in it but they should compromise with it by one way or another. So they have proved their intellect and discrimination in dealing with aridity and heat of the desert climate and use of the facilities of the area through constructing such erections. This article besides studying the history and functioning style of Ice-Houses tries to analyze the creation style of them in the desert regions of Iran and then the structure and the architectural proportions used in Ice-Houses. Presentation of the results in relation with these water and historical heritages and method of applying the experience of ancestors for the modern era and their correspondence with the modern technology will be of other objectives of this article. The endeavour for establishing connection between water, architecture and hidden traditions in the central regions of Iran is the main axle of this article.

Keywords:

Ice-Houses , Local Architecture , Desert , Heritage , Water , Tradition , Central Regions of Iran