Contemporary critical proposals and works focused on investing the visual image to convey the desired meanings and connotations as purposeful messages to society. Many studies dealt with the concept of image and visual culture in architecture without focusing on these two concepts and their relationship to aesthetic taste in general and the impact of this on architectural critical practices in particular in a way that broadens the knowledge base about the critical and architectural inspirational and creative possibilities. So, the research is directed towards finding and defining the real relationship between these concepts to seek to understand and present their multiple aspects and expand their theoretical knowledge base. This research aims to define the general framework of the image culture and then focus on studying the culture of the contemporary visual image and its relationship to the aesthetic taste, which are directly related to the contemporary critical movement, and to determine the nature of the dynamic relations between them, to reach a theoretical framework that represents the foundations and rules affecting the enrichment of aesthetic taste and enriching its messages by clarifying the elements of the image, its expressive and aesthetic value, and how to read it, in addition, to clarify the extent to which the aesthetic taste of society is affected by the components of the architectural image, and finding general frameworks for the role of the image in enriching the critical practice in the context of society, with presenting the conclusions and recommendations.

The research derives its significance from the importance of the subject of architectural criticism, and what it reflects on the reality of contemporary architecture and local identity in the Arab region in light of the changing political and economic ideas. From this point of view, the research problem can be summarized as: The extent of the comprehensiveness of previous studies of the relationship of bias to architectural criticism and determining its characteristics and types as a mechanism of criticism in contemporary Arab architecture. To address the research problem, the goal of the research was determined by building a theoretical framework to understand how to release critical judgments within the concept of bias, and to access the mechanisms that measure criticism in contemporary Arab architecture based on the research hypothesis that states: The intellectual features in architectural criticism are determined through a set of characteristics and concepts associated with the concept of bias.

The research concerned with monument buildings, which regarded as prominent urban landmarks in the city، since they are one of the main axes for city establishment throughout their history and for being the main motive in their transformations. These buildings were، and all still، renewed urban elements that keep up with the urban development، connected with them spiritually and physically.The research depends on a basic hypothesis "the contemporary monument buildings affect their urban context through the visual properties، semantic meanings and urban activities". To test its validation، two buildings in Al-Najaf city، were chosen according to specific criteria .The research found that contemporary monument buildings have an effect on their urban context، whether those buildings were of historical symbolism related to the local or contemporary heritage of the city. This enhances the ability to blend the heritage with the contemporary buildings to strengthen the identity of the city and its culture، especially when its image goes beyond the local level Keywords: monuments، contemporary monument buildings، urban context، Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf.

The research deals with monument buildings in the city, as important urban landmarks of interest to many researchers in different fields of knowledge. These buildings take multiple forms and characteristics from one place to another, especially in the contemporary period witnessed radical and surprise changes at the level of form, function, meanings and local connectivity. Etc. In addition, the wide gap between what these characteristics in the international contexts and the Arabic cities. This led the research to review previous studies and literatures in different research directions. The research based on main hypothesis "the contextual and architectural properties of local contemporary monument buildings consist from a variety of effective vocabulary and variables that achieve monumental characteristic " .A group of buildings in Al-Najaf within specific criteria was elected to prove the hypothesis, using analysis method for the vocabulary concluded from theoretical framework.The research has reached to prove the monumental characteristic of these buildings within its context for the conformity with the basic vocabulary of contemporary monument buildings architectural properties plus the contextual characteristics whether match was fully or partially. The search revealed a similarity in the contextual characteristics of these buildings between local and international city. While a high contrast in architectural characteristics appeared, because of differences in intellectual, social and economic level, which influence the receptivity of influencing contemporary globalization cultures directly on these properties.

The virtual reality of cities is the current historical period of urban progress and a kind of interconnected co-activity between innovative virtual elements, elements of the city and its urban parts according to the affected relationships of social, financial, cultural, spatial, political and local features. Where contemporary concepts of virtual reality were presented by the philosophical corps without clarifying their role comprehensively in the urban development processes of cities, so the research aimed to determine the roles of the ideas of the virtual world and the virtual city in the work of both specialists and decision makers, and the urban development processes of traditional and historical cities, where the research information methodology compares theoretical architectural and urban models to intersect with the basic concepts related to the virtual city, the research reached multi-level roles in terms of impact and degrees of complexity, which contribute to an innovative reproduction of urban development processes.