Documenting Architectural Heritage Using the Capacities of Faculties of Architecture; A case study: using the capacities of Kashan faculties of architecture in documenting the architectural heritage of this city

Documenting architectural heritage means collecting and classifying documents related to architectural masterpieces; this will be useful in educating the architects and also in helping documentation institutions such as Cultural Heritage Organization or the municipality. Fulfilling this task in documentation institutions requires financial and human resources as well as adequate facilities. This cannot usually be carried out because of potential limitations or, in some cases, is carried out poorly with low speed and inferior quality. Moreover, in most faculties of architecture, it is necessary to study architectural sample works which requires providing documentation of such buildings by students and with professors’ help. It seems that capacities in teaching architecture can be enhanced in order to meet the needs of the aforementioned institutions and help such studies be carried out more effectively. This paper aimed to study the “documenting architectural heritage of Iran” using “educational and research capacities of faculties of architecture”.


The adopted research method reflected upon “what, why, and how questions on documentation” and used researchers’ ideas or related institutions to explain a conceptual framework. Then, architectural courses (BA and MA levels) as well as the capacities for each course were analyzed and finally the relationship between these two was discovered; and therefore strategies to achieve this goal were mapped out. Finally, as an example for the application of this proposal, the potential capacities of documenting architectural heritage in Kashan were analyzed in both scales, introducing “the campaign of documentation of Iran architectural heritage by faculties of architecture” as a national strategy.