Journal of Studies on Iranian Islamic City
Year:2011 | Volume:1 | Issue:3|Papers Count:10

Despite the fact that the ordinary residential constructions of Qajar period had a very simple façade, but they were enjoying a strong foundations and structures. In their external and internal buildings, open designs with the observation of communication principles and intimacy, attention to technical issues of waste, water branching, foundation, and fully resistant and anti-earthquake structures, façade building with artistic resistance phenomena connected to building and finally values of arts connected to architecture are all seen.Building construction at the first period of Pahlavi [regime] was following a combination of traditional architecture and those of neighboring northeast countries. In the second period of Pahlavi, building construction in Iran either from the viewpoint of design or implementation was following the western method of construction. It was such that building construction was oriented towards western styles and in some cases without any principle.This article is an attempt to discuss the external and internal building designs and teachings of their facades in Qajar period. Afterwards, the architectural teachings of contemporary age from Pahlavi onwards and the influence of architecture with no identity on contemporary building construction and abnormalities in building construction are dealt with. In fact, part of damages resulting from earthquakes refers to ignorance of the principles of traditional building construction and lack of attention to scientific principles of architecture. So, all regulations of executive instructions under the supervision of qualified bodies such as Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, senior officials and municipalities as supervisors of execution should ask the consultant engineers and supervisors of construction work places to build resistant residential and non-residential construction units.

Looking at historical contexts, it is obvious that their formation and life are manifested in a coordinated and integrated form through a historical, cultural, social and environmental continuity. The residents of those contexts have been receiving their identities through social communication and participation in the creation of the lasting spaces. The impact of such lasting places in forming the individual and social identity of the residents in a section of its life have diminished as a result of economic and social and cultural changes because of introduction of new technologies, globalization, space and time density.Despite broad studies conducted on the method of influence of concepts of identity and place and the mutual link among them in historical contexts, no clear relation is presented there, whereas having learned about the method of impact of such kinds of concepts, it will be possible to struggle against the phenomenon of identity lose in historical textures and lack of its presence in new textures.Making efforts to know the nature of identity and place, and using phenomenological approach, this paper attempts to study their relations with a view to historical textures and to present a conceptual model on formation of place identity. The presence of a strong and two-way link between the perceptual  and discipline organization and determination of urban space  will increase reading, the improvement  of perceptual organization, reinforcement of link with urban space, better reading of urban elements & components and a clear understanding of places and reinforcement of individual & social identity.

Motion is one of the fundamental concepts in the Islamic- Iranian architecture which Iranian architects have tried to use it since long time ago. The emergence of new trends in architecture has caused attention towards motion in contemporary architecture to be continued. This article [taken from a research under the same title] aims to reconsider the physical and spiritual characteristics of motion concept in traditional architecture and Iranian ideas, and to explain the quality of its expression in the Iranian contemporary architecture. The key question in this research is: What are the characteristics of motion in the Iranian traditional architecture? In addition, how is the expression of motion in the Iranian contemporary architecture?To respond to these questions, the method of case study while using combined approaches has been employed and for the purpose of data collection, the library and field methods have been employed. Twenty cases from the Iranian contemporary architecture works are selected, the works which are of importance both for the quality of design in the group of noticeable works in contemporary architecture and that the concept of motion has formed their main design idea.The result is that the motion is identifiable in two frameworks of physical and spiritual motion in the Iranian traditional architecture. The physical motion can be analyzed with criteria like movement in space and creation of motion in the eyes and spiritual motion with have influences on spectator’s feelings. These concepts are observable as design criteria in the analyzed works and a kind of continuity is seen between their physical and spiritual concepts of motion.

The urban form of Middle Eastern and North African cities was scientifically studied in the Europe for first time in the early decades of 20th century. The French Orientalists were the first authors who applied the term “Islamic city” and categorized these cities into a specific group. Since then a series of manuscripts, influenced by former ideas, have been emerged which try to deal with the urban morphology of the “Islamic Cities”. Recently, a group of scholars has tried to propose new ideas in this regard. As this chain of ideas makes the main body of the research in the western and international scope on the theme of “Islamic City”, it is necessary to review it as a sequence of related ideas and highlight the problems and clichés hidden in them.Reviewing the history of formation and course of change of the concept and term of Islamic cities, this article is an attempt to discuss and emphasize on the formation, time of emergence of these clichés, their authors, criticisms on those views by today’s theoreticians of Islamic cities, the validity of their alternative methods and the abilities of studying the complexities of these types of cities. So, for this purpose, the theories on urban form of “Islamic cities” grounded by western authors are dealt with in three major groups entitled as follows: 1) emergence of the concept of “Islamic city” (1900s-1950s), 2) revisionist ideas (1950s-1980s), and 3) pioneer theories.It is intended to show how specific pre-assumptions have overshadowed their descriptions and how today's clichés of this area of studies have roots in primary readings, which were broadly under the influence of urban theories prevailing at their own age in Europe.

The present article aims to investigate urban concepts being used in the holy prophet’s speech and possibility of its employment and grading for contemporary cities. In order to study prophet’s speeches in the analysis of the texts, NahjolFasahe as the prophet’s words has been referred to. Investigating all traditions of this book which includes 3224, 96 traditions connected with city and urban planning and topics related to urban spaces were identified. Then the method of content analysis was used to grade the concepts related with urban areas. Considering the rate of attention and repetition of concepts resulting from the prophet of Islam’s worlds (p.b.u.h.) in NahjolFasahe on topics related to city and living spaces, 9 different levels were specified. The most repeated standard on recommendation of prophet included the importance of friendship with neighbor, and neighboring relation in living spaces.Grading the importance of standards and teachings emphasized by the holy prophet on urban spaces can open way for further attention to the areas related to urban topics.

The thirst of today's Iranian cities towards identity is one of the sensible realities, which has emerged following a greed for modernity starting from nine decades ago.The consequences resulting from Machinism have added fuels to the weakness of social living bases. They have diminished the presence of pedestrians in urban spaces and have fortified presence of drivers. Therefore, the main urban knots are appearing within the format of squares and the squares have become the victims of these changes.This article deals with one of the effective structural examples influencing identity perceptions, so the issue of removing squares from the urban spaces is the basic pivot of discussion. It is assumed that this original specie has certain capabilities to revive and reinforce urban life. Moreover, its omission will be followed with consequences and damages, which cannot be compensated through employment of other species.So, the objective is to identify and explain the substantial difference of square and that of other types and to explain the role of square in city. Using a method based on analysis and then induction, the definition of square, understanding the nature of square and the roles of square are discussed. On this basis, square as a scene to overcome the motionless state on movement in the city, has a capability to give centralization to the texture, to show the totality of the context, surrounding element link, reinforcing reading features, creating attraction and giving meaning to the presence of the group and is an image and manifestation of an urban texture. So, such an omission will lead to damages which precisely include: the low transfer of events to other types, creation of tension in other urban space types, creation of individualism, divergence of urban texture and inability of the texture in portraying urban identity.

Many scholars see Islam as an urban religion, which favors communal practice on individual worship. Although, piety is the only source of appraisal, it is widely accepted that most of Islam's teaching is best practiced in an urban setting. This means that Islam has been a religion with a strong urban orientation. Regarding this, an assumption took shape that, whilst rural peoples or desert anchorites could indeed be faithful Muslims, the good Islamic life could best be lived in an urban community where (as an obvious manifestation of group solidarity) the faithful could gather in a congregational mosque for Friday worship. For this reason, it is not surprising that Islam made particular emphasis on the urban form and design of the city enabling it a greater functionality and responsiveness to meet the socio-economic and cultural needs of the community. From this point, this study investigates the main approaches to the concept of Islamic city to narrow the view to the specific one which encompasses all factors affecting the structure of the Muslims Historic cities in general. This has been done through literature review and content analysis of them. The results show that the formation of the design concepts of the Islamic city is closely bound up with Islamic cultural values and beliefs. These are mainly rooted in the essence of the Islamic law (the holy Koran and the Sunna–the main source of the Islamic law and its cultural values) which regulates all aspects of the lives of Muslims. From this point, the realization of the Islamic law can be traced in all levels and in all contexts of the built form, which resulted in a particular spiritual dimension with a thoroughly religious character for the Islamic city. Apart from those general notions, the work discussed has made clear that we no longer can rely on the notion of the Islamic city as a typical one for all Islamic lands because each region has different natural and socio-cultural circumstances which require particular approaches namely socio-spatial one. This means that the Muslims historic cities are highly place specific and its shaping principles and structuring elements need to be conceived from natural laws expressed through weather conditions and topography, religious and cultural beliefs and social principles (social organization of the urban society).

Cultural function of an urban space and its potential in responding the cultural needs of citizens will not be secured only by providing cultural special spaces and its variety and quantities, but it needs serious consideration and attention to mutual relationship between cultural elements and urban spaces in a holistic manner. When social and physical aspects of an urban space and their dominating factors are evolving, the cultural elements of the space also will change accordingly.The present article aims at examining the evolution of cultural functions of Tehran's urban spaces in a transition from a small traditional city into a modern metropolis, using a secondary analysis method.  The main question and subject matter is how evolution process in physical and social aspects of Tehran urban spaces affects their cultural function correspondingly. The article emphasizes on two issues and questions:1. What changes have been made in cultural consumption models and following that in cultural spaces?2. What changes have been made in the relationship of cultural activities, urban spaces and the position of cultural spaces and activities of the city along with spatial evolution of Tehran?The evolution of cultural functions of Tehran urban spaces on one hand has added to the number and diversity of cultural activities and also their specific spaces and on the other hand, because of modern functionalistic approaches and superiority of commercial functions, it has offered less opportunity to perform cultural functions in urban spaces of modern Tehran as compared with a traditional city.