An intertextual reading of Iran’s contemporary minimalist architecture

Since the 1920s, minimalism entered the thoughts and works of architecture. Cleanliness, the use of simple volumes and neutral colors are the most specific signs of minimal architecture. However, deep and special thoughts can be read through the analysis of intertextual signs in minimal works. Intertextuality explores the relationships between different works beyond the temporal and spatial perspective and can reveal the traces of each work in another work even with a different image and in another place of the world. The research is based on a qualitative method, with a content analysis strategy based on logical reasoning, and with the categorization of intertextual signs, in the form of internal-external cultural relations, vertical-horizontal relations and representation-reference in two contemporary Iranian minimal works, including the Islamic Republic of Iran’s universities, by Hadi Mirmiran. And Laleh Park prayer hall in Tehran by Kamran Diba has been analyzed from an intertextual point of view. The aim of the current research is to explain the components of minimalism in architecture through semiotics using the intertextual method. The results of the research, along with the intertextual analysis of each work, point to the continuous relationships of the elements of the universe based on intertextual thinking.