Ehssan Hanif

Historically in Iran, household labor, including various unpaid works, from culinary tasks to producing commodities like carpets, was considered women's responsibility. As women had to carry out this labor inside their homes, these works acquired domestic attributes and labor seamlessly merged with their daily lives. This labor order formed part of a broader patriarchal system against which Iranian women have devised various strategies, among them singing while working. Bound by the confines of patriarchy, Iranian women found no place to express their innermost feelings but to sing at home during daily work/life. Accordingly, studying these songs as women’s emotional archives offers a clearer understanding of women's domestic life and their inner anxieties. The present study explores four categories of these songs, including lullabies, work songs for weaving carpets, work songs for milking livestock, and work songs for mashkazani, with the objective of portraying how Iranian women utilize singing as a form of resistance.

From the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, the architectural history of Iran became closely linked with oil, which introduced new technologies, actors, and spaces. A key event occurred in 1901 when English businessman William D’Arcy secured exclusive rights from the Iranian monarchy, to explore, extract, and export oil.1 By 1914, D’Arcy sold a major share to the British government, ushering in a new era of British colonial influence in Iran.2 To establish their presence and efficiently exploit Iranian oil, the British built ‘modern’ company towns, including Bawardeh in Abadan, designed by architect James M. Wilson and based on the Garden City concept. According to architectural historian Mark Crinson, this design aimed to address racial segregation issues but was rooted in colonial assumptions that European lifestyles were superior and only Iranians educated abroad were ‘civilised’ enough to live there.3 These assumptions significantly impacted domestic life in these houses. Part of my paper aims to explore these impacts.

Sustainable dwelling is a mental concept, yet it should meet the physical and emotional requirements of humans for living. Therefore, only those sites in which human needs are satisfied can be regarded as sustainable dwelling. Iranian traditional houses with their genuine characteristics are still something to be desired. In these houses the courtyard is the heart of the structure and at the same time it is counted as its organizing principle. Hence, understanding the function of the courtyard leads us to an understanding of the purpose of the whole building. This paper argues that the traditional Iranian courtyards are a materialization of the concept of sustainable dwelling. Moreover, the writer contends that probing into the courtyard for the concept of sustainable dwelling has the added advantage of shedding light on a solution to palliate life conditions in contemporary modern houses of Iran. To this aim the courtyards of three famous houses in Kashan, Iran during the Qajar dynasty, namely Borujerdiha house, Tabatabe'i house and Saleh house are examined as the closest historical examples to our modern world. This study the writer aims to provide a local definition for the concept of sustainable dwelling and second to suggest a practical solution by which to reach an ideal state of life in the contemporary world.