The conservation of the architectural heritage has enjoyed a long course of development over the recent decades. Conservation practice is based on the values offered by the architectural heritage resources for different individuals, groups, societies, and governments. Since there is no serious and comprehensive research on the semantic values, the present study was conducted to identify all the influential semantic values in the architectural conservation process and to determine the importance of each value based on the published literature. To this end, more than 100 scientific documents, statements, and charters were analyzed and then, 40 semantic values were identified. The snowball sampling method was used to select the papers. In this study, the qualitative content analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between the architectural heritage and conservation, and the quantitative content analysis was used to assess the relationship between the semantic values and conservation. According to the results of the content analysis, it can be concluded that the conservation of architectural heritage can be investigated and analyzed at three levels: people, experts, and governments, and the holistic conservation of the architectural heritage can be achieved only by the joint cooperation among all the three levels. Also, the results showed that the cultural value, economic value, historical value, and identity greatly influence the semantic conservation of the architectural heritage.

The virtual visits to cultural heritage sites have significantly increased due to the Coronavirus pandemic and related restrictions on face-to-face visits to historical cultural sites. Many people visit these sites to get acquainted with the culture of the past, researchers to access original and primary documents, and experts to manage information and adopt decision-making policies. In Iran, there is no virtual museum with the capability of displaying its cultural heritage. Thus, the present study aims to present how an online virtual museum can be created in a simple and low-cost way to integrate tangible and intangible cultural heritage documents. This virtual museum integrates the virtual tours of historical monuments, 3D models of museum objects, images, and videos introducing cultural heritage objects. Moreover, with all types of data stored on it, the museum can be useful for the public, researchers, and experts in various fields, improving cultural heritage conservation. Finally, a more comprehensive approach is proposed to digitally integrate cultural heritage documents. This approach can be applied to other countries with common concerns.

Nowadays, due to natural erosion and urban development, Qajar religious schools in Tehran have undergone adverse physical changes. Moreover, the semantic and intangible values of them have faded over time, such that their position in society has declined. The religious schools need the conservation and revitalization of their values. Various research has been conducted on the philosophy of education, and the spatial evolution history of Tehran’s religious schools. However, since no study has been carried out on the value revitalization of them, the present study, as an exploratory and novel study, mainly aims to experimentally investigate experts’ views to revitalize the value of Qajar religious schools in Tehran. Delphi research method and Q-type factor analysis were used to identify and classify experts’ views, respectively. Participants were selected through the purposive non-probability sampling technique. The sample size was selected to be 25, which was confirmed according to the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test used for sampling adequacy. To collect data from experts, a questionnaire was used in three rounds based on the Delphi method. Data obtained from the questionnaires were analyzed using the Q method. Based on the obtained results, up to 73.267% of factors affecting the value revitalization of Qajar religious schools in Tehran were identified and interpreted with certainty based on interviews with the experts. The experts were divided into eight groups or factors based on their views, and seven of which introduced common variables and concepts, named based on their constituent variables. Based on the value of the coefficient of variation, the identified effective factors included climatic architecture (20.51%), resilient architecture (13.45%), spiritual architecture (8.98%), environmental aesthetics (8.12%), educational architecture (6.87%), structural architecture (6.450%), and site visiting (4.566%). It was concluded that in the value revitalization of the religious schools, paying serious attention to these seven effective factors underlies the conservation process.

Religious schools are institutions for teaching Islamic sciences. Nowadays, many religious schools in Tehran, which were built during the Qajar period, have been destroyed due to natural erosion and urban expansion. Since there is no comprehensive research on the conservation and revitalization of these schools, the present study aims to model the value revitalization of Qajar religious schools in Tehran. The present research is a mixed-methods study (a qualitative-quantitative study using a simulation). The data required are collected using a questionnaire. The statistical population includes school teachers who complete the structured questionnaire after visiting the schools through a virtual tour. The teachers are selected using a random sampling technique and the sample size (number of participated teachers) is 948. The sampling adequacy is confirmed with the KMO test. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire are also verified by Cronbach's alpha and the model fit index, respectively. The data are analyzed by modeling and path analysis in SPSS and AMOS software. Research results show that architectural phenomena (i.e., independent variable), through value conservation (i.e., mediator variable), have the most significant effect on the value revitalization (i.e., dependent variable) of Qajar religious schools in Tehran. Also, the path analysis shows three essential relations with a large effect size in the model: (1) The conservation of compound values influenced by social interactions in the building revitalizes the semi-tangible aesthetic factor of the building; (2) The conservation of physical values influenced by the building structure revitalizes the tangible aesthetic factor of the building; and (3) The conservation of semantic values influenced by the moral values of the building revitalizes the intangible aesthetic and educational factors of the building. In value revitalization, two basic aesthetic and educational factors play the most important role because they do not influence any other variable while all variables influence them.