Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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Despite the existence of rich cultural, historical and technological foundations in the architecture and urbanism of Iran, current condition depicts weaknesses, inadequacy, deficiency, alienation and identity crisis. The lack of a systematic approach toward Islamic urbanism for implementing sympathetic demands is one of the most important contemporary issues. This subject is particularly obvious in regeneration of historical urban textures, while Islamic cities are physical masses that can convey the past traditions of a society to the new generations in the modern world. The absence of a systematic approach for explaining the characteristics of Islamic urbanism deteriorates the conditions. In fact, historical textures are parts of the modern cities which could be realized as the signs of Islamic models with a little attention to their half-dead bodies. Each historic fact in order to play aprominent role in its current environment and to be further than an antique object must locate in a dynamic space. That is because the continuity of the life and dynamism of a city in contemporary world demand adaptingand responding to cultural, economic and other needs of modern citizens. Iranian-Islamic cities have been facing explicit morphological changes since early 1900s. Hence, studying thesecities, concepts related with urban restoration and associated literature in the context of urban morphology, thisresearch tries to develop Islamic models which have compatible and responsive Islamic atmosphere, and linkIranian-Islamic values to the physical body of the cities. It is expected that old textures of temporary cities, which are splendid heritages of Iranian-Islamic cities and are found everywhere, can be centers for thinking, performing and modeling in local architecture and urbanism, but it rarely occurs. The mentioned problem is more observable especially with regard to morphological aspects. In other words, regarding related environmental qualities, the contrasts between former and contemporary forms of historicaltextures in Iranian-Islamic cities is the pivot of designing challenges that should be considered. This paper, aims to identify morphological norms from an Islamic architectural point of view, while defining Islamiccities and their components and criteria, besides comparing the historical districts of Gorgan city with ancient Iranian-Islamiccities. Following these aims, case study strategy is chosen, and the historic texture of Gorgan city, which had agreat effect on the evolution of this historic city and has been especially important in the period of Qhjardynasty, is selected as case study. The reason for this choice is that there are important signs of this period in thementioned case study, and they are the architectural and urbanism heritage of recent centuries.With regard to the necessity of implementation of Islamic urbanism heritage in contemporary cities, the goal ofthis research is not to reach a monotonous prototype for all urban areas. Instead, its aim is to utilize the criteriain each city in accordance with proper type of values and chronological aspects. So that, the questions of this study are: Which factors can be used to evaluate the historical texture of Sarcheshmeh neighborhood in Gorgan city in order to reach an Iranian-Islamic prototype? And how can the mentioned factors be used? And finally, Does the morphological structure of thisneighborhood follow the systematic arrangement of Islamic cities? Having a comparative approach, this research is the result of frequent observations and surveys of Sarcheshmeh historic district and the analysis ofcollected data, as well as the comparison of the experts’ views. To use the rules, principles and reflected paradigms in such contexts, qualitative method and case study strategyapplied to do this research. Firstly, by using documentary studies, theoretical basics of morphology, Iranian-Islamic urbanism and urban restoration were explained. Then, by utilizing archival studies the viewpoints ofdifferent persons including Tavasoli, Naghizade and Noghrekar about morphology were perused. As a result, thenorms such as associativity, permeability, diversity and unity for evaluation of selected districts were defined.Afterward, referring to the comments of the mentioned theorists, the selected neighborhood has beencomparatively studied. After extraction of the relevant criteria, identification of morphological qualities weredone by the mean of surveys and site photos to refine the variables. As mentioned above, the analysis of thecontents is one of the techniques of this research and its type is developing– practical.The consequences of the study show that the morphological norms derived from the opinions of differenttheorists such as Naghizade, Tavassoli and Noghrekar are obviously reflected in Sarcheshmeh district, and themorphology of old parts of Gorgan city pursue Islamic prototype this Iranian-Islamic city. Gorgan city can beconsidered among prominent cities in Iran that are established based on the principles and morphology system of Iranian-Islamic urbanism. Nonetheless, since the rise of Pahlavi dynasty and Reza khan’s modernism, theseprinciples have been gradually vanishing, and this manner resulted in vast changes of many historicneighborhoods of the city in recent years. Hence, there has been no vast change in the structure of Iranian-Islamic structure of this city. However, the vast physical interferences in recent decades lead to the collapse ofmorphological structure.

Keywords: Islamic City, Urban Restoration, Morphology, Gorgan City, Sarcheshmeh Neighborhood.

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