BAGH-E NAZAR
Year:2011 | Volume:8 | Issue:17|Papers Count:9

Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, as one of the most significant historic sites of the city, has dramatically bore significant socio-cultural interactions between people and the governments under the economical and political context of the time since its construction. For that reason, it is essential to conserve the authenticity and integrity thereof its historical values. The current circumstances of this historic architectural complex mainly date back to seventeenth century, during the Safavid era. This is why, since then there have been historical documents published regarding the different aesthetic and architectural aspects of this place which used to be a significant political and social spot. Such documents have repeatedly been reprinted over four centuries, whereas there still are valuable pictorial documents which have remained anonymous.On one hand, in the field of architectural conservation, one crucial issue which might considerably influence the trend of continuity and changes for the future, as well as controlling the genuineness of conservation activities in the historic cities and monument, is recognizing their historical perspective. Therefore, this article is meant to arrive at an approach for not only introducing few historic pictorial documents, but also to compare and contrast them with the pervious premises about this historical site. Moreover, these recently discovered documents contain clues which could lead to new questions about the architectural details of this site – questions that need to be answered through future researches. Some of these historic documents, for some reasons including language barriers had previously never been known in the field of Architectural Conservation. They could disclose important points regarding the era in which there was a strong rivalry between the Europeans over interests in Iran.Hence, suggesting an analogy between these pictorial documents and with the existing situation in Naqsh-e Jahan Square is expected to be sufficient as an objective standard to trust some of these findings.Particularly, the likelihood of a staircase beside Ali Qapu palace, the pool in front of Sheikh Lutfullah Mosque, the gate to the king' s interior court or Haram could be highlighted as the untold facts about this site’s architectural aspects.Three main features could be concluded. Namely, those features which refer to what can be proved about the general appearance of the square and the changes and continuity related to its surrounding architectural elements; new findings such as a staircase beside the royal palace, Ali Qapu, and a pool in front of the Sheikh Lutfullah's mosque; and finally the untold facts highlighted in Hofsted 's pictorial documents such as the gate towards Julfa and the pathways within the square's main open space, which are to be investigated in other resources and references in the future research studies.All in all, this paper contributes to upgrading the general understanding and hence verifying the historic identity of Naqsh-e Jahan Square.

One of the main concepts in the domain of human-environment studies is the way of perceiving the environment, both in micro and macro scales. Since the neurological and cognitive system of humans is responsible for establishing connection between man and its environment and has its own specific facilities and limitations, urban planners, in the fields environmental planning and design, must have the required dominance about the mechanisms and processes of understanding the environment by people, to succeed in elevating the urban environment. This is because it is this perception which afterwards forms their interpretation of the environment and eventually emerges in a form of behavior in the environment.Undoubtedly if the people’s behavior in an architectural, or, urban space would be closer to the view of urban planners and architects (and consequently, there would be agreement between the planner/designer and the consumer), we could claim that the result is more successful.Seeing the environment from this point of view and utilizing its results in urban planning and architecture requires accurate recognition and study of the mechanisms and processes of the relation between human and the environment. The significant issue in this field is that global experiences show that there is considerable distinction between men and women’s environmental perception and their criteria. Among common methods for accomplishing this important task are empirical and experimental ones. Along this line and in an empirical activity, 51 male and female students (from the faculty of Architecture and Urbanism; IKIU.) were asked to attend a photo gallery and observe twenty two pictures of natural and manmade landscapes and then answer a number of questions according to what they saw. The aim of this experiment was primarily to determine the way of understanding the environment among these students in general, and secondly to specify if there is a considerable difference between males and females in this area or not? This article is the outcome of this research which along with reviewing the relevant literature analyzes the results obtained from this test.

The growth of cities, despite all their advantages, has resulted in the increase of stress amongst residents and consequently more need for tranquil spaces. Therefore the investigation of previous experienced places, created with the same aim, would be of benefit for today life. One of the principal spaces created for comfort, tranquillity and concentration were gardens.ersonal experience of one of the authors (F. Mehdizadeh) from understanding the traditional Japanese gardens and receiving the sense of tranquillity and meditation there, alongside with all her previous perceptions from Iranian gardens as an Iranian architect, was a motivation for writing this paper. This matter that both spaces are creating the same perceptions with various tools necessitated the deeper analysis.The connection with nature has been always with the aim of creating spaces to give calmness which continued over the centuries in various cultures and climates. Previous researches about historic gardens have been focused on their formation, the type of their elements, their arrangements and their spatial construction. Attention to the selection of constituent elements in compatibility with nature and using nature's tools to provide mental and physical comfort for human has not been paid yet.This paper will investigate the effect of gardens’ constituents and fabric on users. All constructions have been built by human beings to surmount their requirements both physical and spiritual such as the innate need to achieve comfort, mental tranquility and meditation. Eastern thought of gardening considers the gardens as holy spaces and not merely beautiful and thus reflects on insight concepts and believes in its design.The paper will compare two old developed gardens through centuries, traditional Japanese and Iranian gardens which have also continued influencing other gardening systems in other parts of the world which also shows their ability in becoming landscape pattern design in defining the relation between man and nature.In the beginning, paper reviews the history of revolution and change of both Iranian and Japanese historic gardens in its second and third part, alongside illustrating their similarities and differences. Specifically discussion concentrates on the Japanese Zen gardens which are the closest type to Iranian traditional gardens with regards to their geometry and meaning. Then it will describe various design methods to create the same concept in different environmental and cultural conditions. One of the influencing factors on the character of spaces is their elements and their configuration and in particular about gardens is the order and compatibility of built space and the rules (order) of nature.In Japanese gardens a harmonic composition does exist between their main basics of sand, stone, water, natural plants and decorative elements such as lantern, water reservoir, rail and also surrounding environment. In particular Zen gardens are formed from Sandy Islands in green surroundings, while traditional Iranian gardens are formed from water, streams and green spaces in desert surroundings. The usage of stone and sand as natural symbols has root in Shinto beliefs regarding the respect for nature and attention to the symbolic relation between various elements in Zen gardens. In Islamic-Iranian thought also gardens are envisaged as the symbol of heavens on earth (verse 100 in Surah 9: "He has prepared gardens through which rivers flow for them to remain in forever"). Considering the hot-dry climate in major parts of Iran attention to the water and its movement with assorted shapes in gardens alongside with their various plants and trees in contradiction with surrounding environment influences the visual perception and the comfort of body and soul.The analysis and comparison has also been made on the form, texture, colour, geometrical order, spatial configuration, structure and organization and finally symbolic concepts.Conclusion: To sum up with the discussion a comprehensive table compared the fabric and significance in both Iranian traditional and Japanese Zen gardens to clarify the influential elements and concealed meanings in both. In other words, similarities and dissimilarities of two types of gardens could result in achieving the fundamentals of how to attain tranquillity in both gardens.At the end it came to the conclusion that the best way of achieving tranquility and serenity in any spaces could be via translating the religious beliefs of people into the fabric, even so in a diversity of shapes in various cultures and climates.

Transit Oriented Development is one of the urban development approaches which is based on public transportation. This approach encompasses several key objectives of new urbanism and smart growth. It has been often been described as an efficient approach which envisages the environmental perspective on development and is in line with principles to promote social equity, sustainable development and sustainable transit principles. This type of development is sometimes called supportive transit development. The three main principles of transit-oriented development includes mixed land use with higher densities, functional and physical connection to transportation systems and finally designing pedestrian friendly and human scale in the designing of buildings and routes.This approach is applied in many cities around the world. Transit Oriented Development which is based on the subway system is a good example of such approach. Despite all the positive characteristics of transit oriented development, Iran’s capital Tehran does not benefit from its advantages in public transportation services such as the subway and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Therefore, neighborhoods adjacent to subway stations in Tehran lack the attractions in terms of social welfare facilities as is typical with other countries.Besides, they have been designed in a way that human needs as envisaged in sustainable development plans are taken for granted. In return, subway stations are blamed by nearby residents for deteriorating traffic congestion as well as creating certain social woes.The aim of this article is to review the concept, characteristics and benefits of transit-oriented development and also to study cases and projects based on such an approach.In addition, the effects of Tehran's subway stations on adjacent neighborhoods from the viewpoint of a transit oriented development approach are examined. The study uses a survey technique and correlation study on two major subway stations namely Sharif University Station and Iran University of Science and Technology Station. Also, a questionnaire was developed for the purpose of this research. The questionnaire was particularly designed by considering the theoretical framework and the typical patterns of the transit oriented development. It included 160 questions and was randomly distributed in different districts of Tehran.Considering that areas within the immediate distance of subway stations receive the highest impacts of such facilities, the target research area was set at a radius of 300 meters from the stations.In order to examine the effects of subway stations on changes within the neighborhods, the following hypothesis was taken into consideration: "The level of satisfaction of residents near subway stations is influenced by the social, traffic and physical factors". In order to examine the research hypotesis, a correlation analysis was used.Considering the type of data, appropriate correlation mechanisms were used including Gamma and Chi Square Tests.The results of these two mechanisms show that the public transit in Tehran lacks the transit oriented characteristics and even to some extent the development is in contradiction with the concept of neighborhood. Furthermore, subway stations lack standard facilities and cannot be used as centers for typical social activities, as is the norm in many other countries. Many of the respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the current facilities in subway stations. They also emphasized that the necessary infrastcuture for turning subway stations into centers with efficient urban facilities for nearby residents is non-existent.

When you take a look at the history of urbanism and its different styles in Iran particularly the urban planning and architecture of the Safavid era, you will encounter the word khiaban. Khiaban is very similar to avenue in its modern sense in a way that you can consider the avenue as the modernized Safavid khiabans even though you can hardly find the idea in Iranian city planning.This article is meant to take an analytical look at the written and pictured documents to have a clear understanding of this element in Iranian architecture and find out its common principles as used in the Safavid period. The article has also tried to refer to ancient travelogue of European travelers and their descriptions of Iranian urban structures during the golden age of the Safavids. Special attention has been paid on their explanations of Safavid khiabans and the rules governing their construction. Noteworthy is that most of such khiabans are no longer existing or have gradually vanished over time. The current article presents the basic rules of constructing khiabans by relying on observations of five such structures as described in ancient transcripts and maps remaining from the Safavid era.These rules are then put into two main categories of functional and structural.Functional features include: 1. Establishing a link between adjacent sites like kingly gardens and presenting gardens in a city scale. A real picture of this feature can be seen in a famous khiaban named Chahar Bagh in Isfahan.2. Providing a facility for citizens to spend their past time. The khiabans were even especially designed wide enough to enable citizens to have easy horse rides or do leisure activities like archery.3. Giving viewers a sense of appreciation to the magnificence of the king’s court that usually overlooked the khiabans. The khiabans were constructed in a way to have maximum impact on the viewers i.e. by planting two rows of trees on both sides of the way.The physical features: Like Persian gardens, the Safavid khiabans incorporate three elements of water, plant and structure: · Water: canals, ponds and fountains made a special attraction along the way. For example, Sharden talks about seven ponds in Charbagh in very exact details.· Plants: on the other hand, the regular rows of large trees like pine, plane tree and cypress brings a symbolic and affective regularity to the place.· Structure: this element has been used artistically at the beginning, the end and along the khiaban.Location in city planning: the Safavid khiabans were in later centuries located on suburbs and among the gardens in a way that made it possible to develop the city beyond the city walls. This was particularly evident in Charbagh, as the old part of the city through Bazzar goes to the new part of Naqshe Jahan plaza, and the plaza through Alighapou runs toward Chehel Sotoon and Hasht Behesht palace connects to Chahrbagh.

Tehran Revitalization Organization has done several studies about the attributes of the deprived areas including social, economic, spatial, legal, and environmental problems.As an outcome of these studies the importance of considering the spatial organization of the city has become highlighted in regeneration plans. However, no methodological approach is introduced in this regard. The approach of these types of studies was narrative rather than methodological. As a result, the spatial organization of the city has been absent from regeneration plans.This paper aims to study the spatial structure of Tehran as the main attribute of its spatial organization by applying space syntax method. In order to do that Natural Movement theory and Space Syntax were applied in this research and several maps were produced. The produced maps were justified with the literature review and calibrated at finer scale. The maps are the first evidence-based documents in studying the spatial structure of Tehran and the location of the deprived areas in it.The result of this research reveals interesting points in terms of the condition of the deprived areas in the spatial structure of the city and highlights two types of segregation including the voluntary segregation and involuntary segregation.

A comprehensive study of the cemeteries in several Iranian cities shows the disorganization of urban planning for cemeteries and a lack of attention to this issue. In many cities, despite the shortage of cemetery space and strict requirements to the cemetery, land use planning receives no adequate attention. In Comprehensive Urban Plans taking the cemetery into account as one of the important and valid functions of public services is rarely seen. Therefore, the current research shows that most of the Comprehensive Urban Plans of Iranian cities have treated the cemeteries as an urban functional place, the same as landfills or the water treatment plants and have transferred it to the farthest point of the city in the shape of a mega cemetery.It can be concluded that Iranian urban metropolitan zones nowadays face single or mega cemeteries. Also, historical urban cemeteries have been abandoned and have virtually seen no sign of modernity.On the one hand, in the case of historical urban cemeteries, much damage can be seen from their demolition. For instance, the gradual obliteration of an area that may have been once a memorable site for senior citizens could undermine them severely. This is perhaps one of the factors that could lead to reduction of these groups' connection with the modern city life and limit their interaction with it. Moreover, the connection between the older generation with the younger generation on memorable sites like the cemeteries will be missing and consequently cause decrease of the collective identity in the community.On the other hand, facing single or mega cemeteries in urban areas seems to make many difficulties for the Iranian cities; Ignorance of the distance and scale in urban planning, and the same about the social aspects of architecture in burial spaces. Consequently the quality of human relations is reduced and costs for visiting the cemeteries are also significantly increased. During the 70's of 20th century, sustainable urban development has been considered as a goal in many cities around the world.Therefore, the mentioned problems about single and mega cemeteries and the demolition of historical urban ones seem to be an obstacle in front of achieving sustainable urban development in Iranian metropolises.These problems are occurring while cemeteries seem to play many different roles as an urban space, particularly with regards to the cultural and social aspects. Studying these roles seems to be helpful for finding solutions for many issues important for urban development plans.Two cemeteries have been used as the research case studies; one a historical urban cemetery in Tehran named Zahiroddoleh Cemetery (established in 1924), where the graves of many famous figures are located, and Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. (Pictures 1 and 2) The research method used in this essay is Qualitative Research. Since this method has a great potential for investigating the quality of living conditions and life environment, as is apparent from the subject of this paper, it seems to be an efficient research method.Besides analyzing three aspects of sustainable development, including environmental, social and economical, UNESCO’s Agenda 21 has become a base for reaching sustainable development without paying attention to cultural diversities. This essay is focusing on the need of cultural issues in sustainable development while studying the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversities by UNESCO. Therefore, how cemeteries effect on urban areas in any of four aspects mentioned above is one of the main ideas discussed. This article suggests guidelines to improve cemeteries' roles in achieving sustainable development and by suggesting four following programs: 1.Revival and qualitative improvements of available historical cemeteries, 2.Extension of these cemeteries depending on their situations and neighborhood functions, 3.Providing new cemeteries in urban areas in line with special cemetery targets like laying cultural figures down to rest near major cultural sites of their lifetime interest.4.Using cemeteries as an urban landscape area.It seems important that for implementing any of these four programs, there is a need to pay attention to different facets of cemetery spaces. Nonetheless, enhancing the function of cemeteries to reach a sustainable urban development in Iranian metropolises is something which is possible to achieve.

There are different approaches to the concept of urban landscape. Some of these approaches at times diminish the significance of urban landscape to beautification and decoration of environment. However, others take urban landscape as equal to every interaction between humans and the urban environment which gives them their distinctive personality. Either of these assumptions could bring about different consequences for urban landscape planning and management.What is of considerable important is that, in a generic classification, how we can categorize urban development plans according to their approaches to planning and management of urban landscape.This paper tries to seek evidence for or against the following hypotheses. First, at the beginning, early urban development plans constrained the concept of urban landscape to physical aspect of city. However, in recent urban development plans, this concept expanded to an identification factor of cities. Second, it seems that although (according to international experiences) recent documents of urban development plans establish practical solutions for implementation of their conception of urban landscape, Tehran development plan documents have failed to achieve the same success.This paper studies recent international experiences and documents of Tehran development plans. For this reason, two different plans are scrutinized: the Jeddah Strategic Plan (as a case study of developing countries similar to Tehran, with similar cultural, social and economic background) and the London Plan (as a case study of developed countries and a pioneer in the field of urban planning and management). Then, the design process of Tehran comprehensive plans is analyzed (three comprehensive plans prepared by Farman Farmaian, ATEC and Boom-Sazegan consultants respectively). The research method is content analysis which is used for studying the content of official texts.Findings of this study shows that the concept of urban landscape in urban development plans has expanded and enhanced over time. The same pattern is also seen in the experiences of developed countries.Furthermore, in developing countries there has been a changing trend towards urban landscape which takes it as an identification factor in urban development plan documents. Despite this recent international trend and general tendency, Tehran urban development plans have failed to achieve their goals and commitments in the field of (their ideas and conception of) urban landscape.However, supplementary planning guidance such as “London View Management Framework” is a good example of systematic solution for urban landscape planning and management by official urban procedures.The London View Management Framework is a supplementary planning guidance to preserve London's character and build heritage.It explains the policy framework for managing the impact of development on London landscape. This framework and its methods could be seen as a functional approach in the field of urban landscape which could be adopted for recent Tehran comprehensive plan by Tehran planners and managers.