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.

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In each restoration, at least two elements can be easily distinguished, “the item of restoring” (monuments and things) and “restoration human factor” (restorer). It is obvious that “restorer” as an interfering person in historical monument, which is the item of restoring, has the determinant role in restoration. On the other hand, although there are codified guidelines about interfering in historical monuments for restorers, the restorer’s personal traits and also his/her qualification in interfering is not considered specifically and independently. By referring to history of restoration and analyzing restoring theories and attitudes, it can be said that there was always more attention to “the item of restoring” than “the restoration human factor”. Therefore, most of the restoring guidelines are also codified based on theories that consider the restorer as an executive of guidelines, and there are no definition about the restorer and no evaluation of the qualification of him/her. However, in Islamic civilization scope it is completely different and the skill factor has had priority over principles and rules.

In this paper, at first, the author tries to explain these concepts and describe the relationship among them concerning the linear relationship among “civilization”, “culture”, and “thoughts”. Then he demonstrates the position of the “historical monuments” to these concepts and emphasize on the importance of restoration and protection in every civilization. The importance that not only concerns the relationship among thoughts, culture, and civilization, but also mentions this point that every civilization scope should describe its restoration method and restoration experiences have limitations which are limited to “thoughts and culture” of that scope. Therefore, for each civilization special approaches should be suggested and these approaches cannot be applied for other civilization scopes.

By this introduction it is obvious that all existing restoration advices which are mentioned in international patent, though valuable, belong to the western culture and civilization in modern era. Not only cannot they be applied to the traditional scopes (even of western traditional culture), but also they specially cannot be applied to traditional Islamic scopes. The author by giving this background would like to access the Islamic culture and civilization scope approaches, and tries to demonstrate the special approaches of this culture in this scope.

After a brief review on Islamic culture, the researcher come to this point that, similar to other cases in Islamic culture, the doer has the highest priority and tries to explain and demonstrate this aspect in the scope of restoration.

On the other hand, by concerning this point that the traits of the restorer are not mentioned in the protection and restoration history, the paper attempts to answer these questions: “What is the role of restorer from the point of view of theoreticians?” and “What are the qualifications of restorer in each approach?”, then compares this attitude with those in Islamic civilization and culture scope.

This paper, by analyzing the existing discussions in the history of restoration, tries to deduce the traits of restoration human factor (restorer) from restoration theories, then by concerning their philosophic principles categorizes their approaches. Thereby categorizing all the restoration advices in the history of protection and restoration into three approaches. Based on these approaches and referring to existing discussions in Islamic culture and civilization scope, it tries to extract the special approach in this scope, and finally put that as the fourth approach along the mentioned ones.

According to this study, existing approaches in the history of restoration are: (1) The first approach is based on restorer’s skills, experiences, and artistic and archeological studies of him/her and historically includes the first restorer to Jean Baptiste Lassus. (2) The second approach is based on scientific and positivism principles that Lassus is the representative of it. (3) The third approach is based on the creativity of the artist that Cesare Brandi created it by the influences of Martin Heidegger. (4) The fourth that belongs to the Islamic culture and civilization scope draws the qualification of the restorer based on cultural, faithful and thoughtful abilities of him/her that is called “Ahliyyat” and is based on religious faith of the restorer.