Interiors in transition: The experience of the current Iranian homes

The contemporary Iranian home has always functioned as a place that relieves the tensions between a series of contradictory processes such as modern and traditional practices. This investigation grounds on exploring the essence of the Iranian home centred on how Iranian homes are experienced on an everyday level. This is achieved by focusing on the notion of the atmosphere of space, addressing the complex cultural, spatial and gender-related elements that constitute Iranian home practices and leads towards altering its spatial identity. For that purpose, the spatial transformation of Iranian domestic space within the cultural, social and religious processes during the modernisation of the country has been examined. Subsequently, this paper emphasises particularly, on the atmosphere of home as a spatial character that is being created within a range of tangible and intangible elements and is representative of Iranian identity, culture and traditions. Theories on the notion of everyday architecture have been applied to examine the circumstances of Iranian home and the ways in which the Iranian home is perceived and experienced spatially and sensually within interior atmospheric qualities. Consequently, this research aims to remark the complexities of the study of Iranian home as a place of contradictory processes, proposing to exceed beyond conventional approaches of home and homemaking studies by embracing themes such as atmosphere and the sensory experience of home, placing them at the core of the architectural examination of home.