Journal of Studies on Iranian Islamic City
Year:2011 | Volume:1 | Issue:4|Papers Count:13

The shortage of space for development, especially in central and dense textures of large cities such as Tehran, is an important challenge for urban planning. Using complete existing potentials and optimizing the space use in the condition of shortage of space is a basic rule which is put forth within the framework of endocrine development. The zone 11 is one of the central districts of Tehran, which is facing the problem of shortage of space and inefficiency of its textures. The present article examines the redevelopment possibility of inefficient textures of zone 11 of Tehran. To achieve this target, first, the identification criteria of these spaces were specified. Then, giving weight to the standards by a group of experts, the whole textures (fabrics) of zone 11 were studied based on these standards within the framework of ArcGIS software. Afterwards, out of the quarters of the zone, a quarter with the highest rate of inefficient space and in need of red development was selected.  In the second phase, that quarter was studied and prioritized based on the standards of determining the optimal location for different uses and types of development. In this phase, criteria of place selection were weighted based on AHP model within the framework of Marinoni program (one of the side GIS programs).The results of the research show that service-administrative and commercial land uses are the first and second priorities of redevelopment in Anbar-e Naft quarter. With regard to the standards of location finding, the existing of macro scale activities, arterial networks and incompatible activities, the residential land use is the fourth priority as far as redevelopment capability is concerned.

Iranian cities which had grown up during historical periods based on national creativity and innovations in an endocrine form were gradually changed wholly in the course of some decades. In fact, they lost their skeletal and cultural values, social, artistic and historical features. The gradual changes started from the Constitution Movement and spread since 1920’s by accepting modernity and pursuing western models.  The trend of urban settlement and urban development in the new ear, on one hand was not perfected due to lack of observing Iranian land model and features and on the other hand, it did not accept western model in a proper and pre-planned grounds. Imitating the west and capitalistic world under the not so much healthy relations of Iran and the western countries, that trend took shape and changed.  These changes made the disruption of old textures of Iranian cities. Having accepted the external models and spreading it in all areas of centralization, it gave rise to the spread of problems such as density of population, air pollution, margin settlements first in Tehran and then in all large cities of Iran. In such a condition, developing urban pilot projects in modeling the western patterns were abolished. The reason was that nobody was attaching value to planning at national, regional, urban and local levels in a hierarchical form, so that it could not bring about changes through basic orientation of cities and giving orders to their developments and growth. The present article studies the roots and factors of formation of western ideas imitations and its consequences for the urban development plans in Iran.

The quarter as one of the most important identity-making factors used to provide a pleasant environment for the citizens in the past. Amid these, the fate of Iranian women has been linked with urban quarters in a more deep form. However, analyzing the historical trend of the performance of the urban quarters, a falling process is observed, because the performance of these places has gradually been weakened. Opposite to the past, women have been omitted from the urban plans, thus cities have been converted into completely manly environments. Nevertheless, the new urban planning has not been able to overcome the existing conflicts in cities. Using analytical method, this article has studied the process of quarter identity from the past up to the present and the position of new urban planning in reinforcing the quarter identity and satisfaction of women. The results show that in order to improve the existing condition, it is very necessary to pay attention to the native pattern of this land in the structure of cities. Also, the establishment of participatory centers of women to activate physical environment of the city, to create and reinforce the quarter-oriented system in presenting urban services and revival of public spaces in quarters will be so effective.

Human residential units have always been exposed to damages resulting from natural disasters and man-produced incidents. So human has always been trying to adopt various methods to reduce the damaging impacts of these types of disasters in his living environment. One of the innovative approaches was the use of passive defense to reduce the vulnerability of residential units. Since Iran territory has always been located at the road of historical events and exposed to military aggression of different nations and neighboring tribes, so that using the features of natural geography has always been noticed as a way to protect the security of the people.  One of the most important manifestations of these issues can be seen in the construction of castles or military and non-military castles in the heights.  This article is an attempt to identify the basic features of the most important manifestation of human residential unit including castles in the ancient Iran from the perspective of passive defense.  For this purpose, using the descriptive and analytical methods, this article extracts the most important characteristics of Iranian castles in three historical periods of Medes, Ashkanian and Sassanids. The results of this research indicates that from the viewpoint of military commanders, architects and engineers of the ancient Iran, the principle of locating and using geographical barriers have been in the blueprint of passive defense in every three periods. Considering the extracted features of castles of these three periods, it can be understood that the considerations of passive defense in each period had a growing trend such that in the last periods under our consideration, the new and complex methods of passive defense encircles the castles.

The phenomenon of sun-dried brick architecture of Fahraj Mosque of Yazd remaining from the end of the half of the first century After Hijrah is a simple and at the same time a well-designed unit which stands stable and is being used spiritually. The unique monument of the tomb of Sultan Ismael of Samanid is also one of the most outstanding monuments representing Iranian art. These monuments narrate the values of brick work in the third century A.H. The works remaining from the Seljuq period indicate creativity, innovation, science and art and in total the implementation of the most innovative diverse works of Iran territory.Out of these works, we may also refer to the mile minarets and tomb towers which enjoy a high practical and artistic value. The Illkhanid period is the period of multilateral reconstruction for all parts of Iran and creation of immense and unique monuments. In some cases, the science of architecture has been mixed with mathematics and mechanics and has created the most novel global works by the faithful and skillful architectures and constructors, the monuments which serve as the foundations for Iranian architecture.

In the beginning of solar fourteenth century contemporary nationalism global phenomenon could provide a new definition of nationalism despite historical nationalism that had a continuous position in the history and its most important result was the substitution of national and ancient interests for ethnic and religious rituals.Since the most important question in this article is that “how nationalism affects governmental architecture buildings in the first Pahlavi period?”, Thus we’ve tried to verify the effects of nationalism as a political concept on the architecture of this period and explain some features of its architecture. Research method of this article is “Descriptive-Analytical” so that first the written sources related to the subject was collected and data needed were extracted. Then visit the monuments of this period to analyze and explain the features they paid. According to studies, one tactic used by governments to make sense of this term Nationalist (and exploitation of results) the architecture of the ancient doctrine that had two purposes:1-anti Religious                 2-modernismOf the results is that the ancient architectural elements (particularly the Achaemenid and Sassanian) only are used in the appearance of buildings and the use of these elements are also two types: 1–buildings that firmly used elements and ancient symbol like the Shahrbani House, National Bank, schools of FirouzBahram and Anoushirvan and Carpets Company Building 2-The building that inspired and taken from the ancient building there was no direct imitation have shapes and architectural elements of Achaemenid, Parthian and Sassanian like State Department building and the Museum of Ancient Iran.

In the spaces of Iranian cities that have been formed under the influence of rational and artistic teachings and patterns of Islam for many years, the formic and semantic factors  associated with qualities related to human activities and behaviors, have been their main shaping factors. Amid these, urban squares as the most important spatial container of social living in open spaces of cities have had a very prominent role in attracting people and their presence and also in gaining human presence quality in cities.This article with the adoption of a descriptive-analytical approach to the literature of this subject and through the structural analyze of concepts and components of the subject, has expressed the synopsis of these topics which are useful in explaining the relationship among the triplet of urban area (Square), human presence and Iranian-Islamic city . It also emphasizes on the ruling principles in the formation of squares. It is worth mentioning that presentation and selection of these materials have been such that they could be close to presenting a prescription on the topic. Although in this article, no attention is paid to presenting any strategy and policy in connection with the human presence in urban squares, but themes and pivots have been provided for this purpose.

The present article aims at explaining the quality of evolutionary course of the components of aesthetic in the monuments of Islamic era.  Using descriptive-analytic method and within the format of a qualitative study, this article is trying to respond to this question: What was the role of the evolutionary course of the aesthetic components at the level of “being at the time and being concurrent with” in the formation of aesthetics of the structure of Islamic monuments in particular Qubbat Al-Sakhra and the Jameh Mosque of Damascus?  The results indicate that some of the monuments of early Islamic period at the level of “being at the time” have been the outcome of integration and interaction of different cultures, so that their aestheticism holds a multi-cultural feature. So the aesthetic components of these monuments as the cultural phenomena are the outcome of interactions and mixture of multi cultures and have been materialized by social and political factors such as: revolutions, rebels and conquests.

The construction of traditional religious theological schools is an indication of a link between science and religion through establishment of public utility units. The religious school of praying place is one of the historical monuments of Yazd. The development of the city and social changes of recent decades have diminished the land use of this place. This change has taken place in the image of the unit with the construction of the school.The main purpose of this research is to study and explain the Islamic-Iranian model of religious school and praying place in the local architecture of Yazd. The architectural teachings of the monument of Yazd praying place and the coordination and link between praying place and religious school will be reviewed as well.In the present research, using a descriptive and analytic method, efforts have been made to study the library sources, field and historical documents and analyze the collected data. The results of this research show that the existing of the same direction between science and religion has helped with the revival of the intellectual tradition of Islamic architecture and this feature has been influential in the establishment and continuation of its life.Also this research will show that using the changes of historical periods, it will be possible to use those capacities and innate potentials at the service of maintaining and reviving physical and spiritual values. This article also reminds the necessity of collaborative exchange of idea among engineers, architecture and religious scholars in designing, reviving and construction of seminaries and urban prayers places.

Islamic art has explained for “City” and “beauty” a special position that due to inattention to pure and true ideas has been faced with many problems. Therefore it is necessary that viewpoint of Islamic art should be analyzed the place of “town” and “beauty”. Today rang of urban and urbanization has covered all of economic, social, physical sectors. From Islamic viewpoint, when Islam appeared, town had special place and has been mentioned as holy place. This idea, there is no each doctrine. Accordingly, Islamic art has defied special place for beauty in city and it has answered this question how has been defined place of beauty in city. In Islamic art has been defined principal of city with human and residents and in the first step to identify city from other places has been regarded social aspect such as: security, prosperity and abundance and physical aspect such as: harmony, beauty, symmetry, contrast, strength. The main principle in urban is that beauty of life has been created in this world for faith people. By accepting this principle, it is necessary that beauty should be considered in all of social and physical aspect in urban.