Journal of Studies on Iranian Islamic City
Year:2014 | Volume:5 | Issue:17|Papers Count:7

With the presence of Muslims in Iran and their dominancy over the country, the course of urban settlement and structure of Iranian urban life had noticeable changes. Thought the base of city after the introduction of Islam should be considered based on urban settlement and urbanism at Sassanid ages. The new religion spread a set of new social frameworks, norms and principles in the Iranian society which explicitly had impact on the structure of the daily life of people. This article is of the type of historical researches and using the historical data, documents, archeological findings, urbanism evidences and their analysis, this article tries to study the influence of Islam on the trend of urban settlement and the construction of urban spaces. The results of this study make efforts to display how and to what extent Islam has impact had on the space organization of the Iranian cities. With the assumption of impact of Islam on the cities of Islamic ages, it displays whether or not the title of the Islamic city could be attributed to them. The authors believe that Islam has been the most important factor in the changes made in the texture and face of Iranian cities after Islam. The studies obtained from this research showed that Islam indirectly and primarily has had impact on the social organization and structure of urban life in Iran. As a result of these vast changes, other urban features which are effective in the construction of space organization of cities have undergone changes. The results of the research have also made authors to come to this belief that the application of the Islamic city term to the established or changed cities of Iran after Islam is incorrect and the most suitable term for the elaboration of this effective process is the city in Islamic ages.

Iranian architecture speaks about history, wisdom, principles and incredible phenomena of spiritual arts. This architecture has had a great growth in Islamic ages in all aspects of with affiliated arts including art of plaster works. In total, the arts affiliated with the Iranian architecture, in particular the phenomenon of plaster works has been very regular, and decorating the inner part of units. In some cases, it has caused the beautification of the outer and inner housing faces such as houses at Qajar period in Kashan and other regions. This art has brought about the various images of Eslimi, Khatayea, scattered ivy and many other types of seven pens of script and its branches for Iranian and Islamic architecture. The result is that the innovative art of plaster work can be used both for beautification of today’s Islamic works and also the residential units. In summary, the art of plaster works with the combination of mirror works, has created another branch of this art. In total, the two arts of mirror work and plaster work in form of deep and highlighted and in some cases with colored mirrors, has given rise to a great philosophy and wisdom of beauty and aesthetic attraction for the works of Iranian and Islamic architecture. This study has been conducted based on historical analytical –descriptive method. The information has been obtained from the library studies and field observations and experiences.

One of the important principles of Iranian-Islamic cities is the cohesion and unity in the city structure. The past cities of Iran had a main structure which encompassed the main elements and performances of the city and was continuing at the districts levels in hierarchical form. In addition to the increase of readability and giving identity to the city and district, it used to give an effective and coherent form to the cities. The researches made by thinkers such as Linch shows that using the mental image of the city structure, humans deal with finding the direction and route. So, it is necessary that in the urban plans, attention to be paid to the mental image of the users of the city, so that the efficiency of the main structure could be reinforced to back up the behavioral models (movement) among the inhabitants. As according to the formal statistics, annually about 17 million of passengers enter into Mashhad and about 3 millions people are inhabiting in this city. The management of the behavioral models of inhabitants and pilgrims to remove the problems of this city is inevitable. It seems that the basic structure of Mahshad and the mental structure dominating over the users of this space are not compatible with each other. This is the main factor accounting for the urban problems including traffic in Mashhad. In order to prove this hypothesis, this research has dealt with the study of the degree of adaptation of the basic structure of Mashhad city and the mental structure of the inhabitants and pilgrims in Mashahad through the methods of space arrangement analysis methods. Analyses show that the mental map of the inhabitants and pilgrims of Mashhad does not have a common points with the main structure designed for this city with the exception of a few points. This subject can be one of the main causes of traffic problems in Mashhad city. This point makes necessary further notice to the mental image of people in the future plans for Mashhad city.

Efficiency of the langue for the Islamic-Iranian model of environment and landscape design is subject to the correct nature of this language and its structure. The wisdom of art and architecture of this land have firm theoretical foundations which can configure the structure of this language in order to achieve the urban landscape with the Islamic-Iranian identity. What brings these models in a reverse direction with the Islamic-Iranian architecture is the lack of agreement of its theoretical roots with the Islamic –Iranian architecture. In this article, having a structural view, a study has been made to find out the structure of the Islamic-Iranian model of design for environment and landscape in Islamic-Iranian city. The research methodology in use is the logical reasoning in the bed ground of historical studies. The results obtained from this research indicate the presence of strong structures in order to elaborate an Islamic-Iranian model language. The structure of this language is such that it can respond to immense combinations of the closeness of Islamic-Iranian models.

Axis is the basic factor in physical organization of temples which with regard to the method of thought of each school, has had a symbolic role in worship spaces. Axis in the space of prayers rooms is the factor for giving direction and can inspire a defined quality and meaning in the prayers room. This article in an attempt to display the factors and meanings effective on axis making of Islamic and Christian worship places. The necessity of study and review of axis is in the importance of the hidden and effective role in the spiritual and physical direction of prayer room space. This has been made in comparative-reasoning method. The study of the primary foundations of axis displays the causes and the method of formation of praying spaces and leads to have an informed view towards the design of mosque and church. In the beginning, the intellectual bases and differences related to axis orientation in mosque and church have been put forth. Finally, having a comparative study of mosques and churches, the semantic analysis of axis role has been made. On this basis, the horizontal axis in the Christian prayers’ rooms has a firm position and conveys the historical, secret and performance roles. Axis in the church causes physical-driven attitudes and link of church with the factors and symbols of this world. Axis in mosques has been formed based on performance and functional obligations. What can be observed inn the mosques is a gap like space and far from a dominant tendency towards a specific direction. Axis making in the mosque leads to the silence of mind and the unit definition of the space. It is such that mosque is known as the manifestation of a united and public prayer’s place, in harmony with the individuality of individuals towards a single deity. Finally, the common feature in axis oriented attitude in the church and mosque is the vertical axis. What makes the real meaning in mosque and church is the axis of ascension which defines the route of salvation.

Iranian bazars are among the most important forming parts of the city structure in historical and cultural cities of the ancient time. These bazars not only have had impact on the general structure of the city and formation of districts, but also have been given significance attention by people as one of the important manifestations of architecture and have become famous in the world. Due to the unique features which exist in the Qeiysarieh bazar in Lar as compared with other bazars remained from the old times, it seems it is necessary to make more deep and precise study of it. The purpose of this article is to find out the oldness of this valuable monument, because so far no comprehensive study has been made about the exact date of the construction of the unit and all dates mentioned about it have been based on personal guesses and estimations. The result will help greatly to restudy the position and historical record of Lar city and the degree of significance and its thriving state in the past times. In order to achieve this goal, the combinational method of descriptive and historical-comparative) methods have been used. First, the library studies and review of historical documents to learn about the method of formation of bazars in different ages and their similarities with Lar bazar from the viewpoint of urban position and the ground upon which bazar has taken shape and also it has been studied from the viewpoint of structure and geometry of the unit. Due to the high similarity of the architecture of Lar bazar to the method of architecture of Timurid age, the focus has been made on restudy of the outstanding elements of this period in bazar monument. For this very reason, first the features of architecture of Timurid age which exist in Lar bazar have been cultivated. In the continuation of study, a comparative study has been made between Lar bazar and Bukhara bazar belonging to Timurid period. The results show that the construction and configuration of space elements of Lar bazar are fully in agreement with the methods employed in Timurid age. In other words, all characteristics of this age have been manifested in an excellent way in Lar bazar.

Landscape design is always identified by cultural viewpoint and religious views. In fact, landscape design creates new and fresh composition and delicate system by emphasizing on conceptual perspective that is based on religious views. But nowadays there is not such relationship between landscape design and Islamic identity and we can see some kind of identity crisis. Therefore this article is shaped based on this question: How we can make a relationship between Islamic identity and contemporary landscape design? The researcher believes that we can induce some factors from Quran verses and the quote of Shiite Imams that reflect Islamic identity in contemporary landscape design. The research method is based on descriptive – analysis of data. The data was collected from authentic religious and scientific documents. The result show the Islamic identity in contemporary landscape design consists of two parts -subjective (4 factors) and objective (6 factors). There is an overlap among these factors and are inseparable. In this article the manifestation aspect of these factors were indicated by using Quran text and the quote of Shiite Imams. Finally the way of creating Islamic identity in contemporary landscape design is explained.