Armanshahr Architecture & Urban Development

Armanshahr Architecture & Urban Development

Cultural Semiotics and Analysis of Spatial Territories in Traditional Iranian Housing

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Babak Shahpasandzadeh 1
kazem mondegari 2
1 Assistant professor. Department of Architecture. Faculty of Art and Architecture, Shahid Bahonar University, Kerman, Iran
2 Assistant professor. Department of Architecture, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran
10.22034/aaud.2026.460470.2887
Abstract
Spatial territories with the cultural concept of privacy and are an important category in Demarcating of architecture; Architecture is the most complete reflection of culture, cultural studies are among the subjects of interest in semiotics, and signs are the physical manifestation of culture. The purpose of the research is to introduce the position of the basics of cultural semiotics in the representation of the concepts of place boundaries, to explain the role of cultural signs in the systematic interpretation of the spatial territory. collecting data and completing the subject literature using semiotics, documentary and library studies; data analysis is done to develop a conceptual framework and expand the basics of cultural semiotics to the field of architecture with a descriptive-analytical method, and organizing data and interpreting the results is done with a logical reasoning strategy. since the cultural concept of the territory implies the concepts of cultural-social boundaries of the body, therefore, the meaningful reading of the territories of the place in the cultural semiotics approach based on the foundations of the "symbolic sphere" and "Communications of substitution" can be traced by identifying symbolic systems of place and their relationship with the concepts of spatial territories. Identifying or marking through spatial territories, as cultural sub codes, in the structural-analytical approach of cultural semiotics, recognizes the components of the territory and explains the relationships between those components in a generality called the cultural codes of privacy. Which itself is defined in a hierarchical relationship with the symbolic space of the field of architecture, in relation to symbolic systems and shapers in the meaning of these systems. On this basis, knowing the alignment of private-public realm contrasts in architecture with self-other contrasts in cultural semiotics, reliable foundations to understand the conceptual structure of territories, considering how the private realm is represented.
Keywords
Codes
cultural semiotics
culture
Traditional Iranian housing
spatial territory
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Armanshahr Architecture & Urban Development
Volume 19, Issue 55
Autumn 2026
Pages 1-15

  • Receive Date 31 May 2024
  • Revise Date 13 December 2025
  • Accept Date 02 June 2026