Criticism marks the beginning of a conversation and can pave the way for new discourses in architecture. Its role transcends merely providing answers; it involves raising questions. Without criticism, new inquiries and issues might not surface, ideas may remain unfruitful, and innovative movements may fail to emerge. Criticism can be defined as an objection to the phenomena and realities that have become normalized in the daily professional life of architects. It aims to reintroduce sensitivity to the architectural professional community. Unfortunately, this crucial aspect has received insufficient attention in the universities, academic, and professional circles of the Iranian architectural community, and the existing potential in this sector has not been fully realized. Criticism encompasses various areas: it serves as a benchmark alongside theoretical, systematic, analogical, and typological expressions. Explanatory, descriptive, biased, inductive, and interpretive criticisms shed light on biographies and contexts. In the realm of architecture, criticism examines structures that necessitate concurrent work, specialized and extensive knowledge, and the architect’s presence. However, other aspects of architecture, such as language, behavior, thoughts, and professional ethics, have received less attention. Thus, a new approach to criticism, incorporating standards and criteria for evaluating phenomena, is required to articulate the unspoken and the unseen.

The current exhibition is the culmination of collaborative efforts by architecture students of Isfahan Azad University, who have designed critical posters addressing various facets of architecture as part of their research. This endeavor seeks to shed light on underexplored aspects of contemporary Iranian architectural society through targeted initiatives. Unlike conventional critiques confined to buildings and structures in the form of articles and lectures, this initiative aims to examine and critique other dimensions of the Iranian architectural community, including architectural education, competitions, seminars, workshops, virtual spaces, professional relationships, ethics, and architectural practices, using visual mediums such as images and graphics. Through the examination of lectures, interviews, articles, and social media platforms containing architects’ perspectives on architecture and related events, common keywords, concepts, and propositions that resonate with many architects have been identified. These propositions serve as the core themes for creating the graphic content, with each being represented uniquely through posters.

Students: Behnoosh Nikparvar, Ehsan Kazemi, Fahime Ghasemi, Farnaz Nekui, Leila Gharazi, Mehsa Yazdanibakhsh, Mohammad Reza Mahmoudi, Mohammad Reza Sartipi, Nagin Saghafian, Reyhaneh Kolahdozan, Sara Hasannezhad, Sima Janghorban