THE INFLUENCE OF WESTERN ARCHITECTURE ON IRANIAN ARCHITECTURE DURING THE REIGN OF NASER AL-DIN SHAH QAJAR (1848–1896) (BY ANALYZING HIS DIARIES IN EUROPE).

Confronted with the Western culture and architecture the Iranian society in general and building designs in particular underwent significant transformations in the Qajar period, although the earliest influences can be traced back to the Safavid era. With the advance of industrial developments and the import of technology from the West, concurrent with the reign of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar in Iran, Persian architecture began to enter its own period of Neoclassicism, as a symbol of Modernism and development, which they found as the dominant school for exposition of wealth and power in Europe. The present study analysis the diaries of Naser al-Din Shah, which he kept during his trips to Europe. Adopting qualitative research methods and analysing the available literature, the study scrutinizes the surviving physical evidence from the period in order to demonstrate how the influence of Western architecture, and particularly Neoclassicism, developed the Iranian buildings of Qajar period and what were the sources of these influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]