From Ancient to Modern Urbanization: Intermediary Function of an Urban Society (original) (raw)
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Function of Iranian Cities in Safavid Erapolitical Cities or Commercial Cities
2013
History of City and Urbanization in Safavid dynasty is one of the most active as well as complicated social category. Distribution and function of each city in accordance with their political, economic, social and cultural role indicated their various functional changes. Besides the political origin of Iranian cities in this era, the economic relations that are depended on urban society, is one of the most important functions of the city as a social phenomenon. In Safavid Iran, this has played a decisive role in the activity of urban social life regarding to an organized definition of commodity, distribution and exchanging system between urban and rural society as well as defining the role of organization in commercial process.This paper is based on historical analyzing method, utilizing historical sources, and social and economic studies on urbanization defining Persian cities economic structure in Safavid era. Farah Abad, Isfahan and Bandar Abbas in north, center and south of Iran...
Journal of Archaeological Studies
During the late fourth millennium B.C some changes took place in many archaeological sites of south eastern Iran that affected the different aspects of life in the region. By expanding of local cultures in the late 4 th millennium B.C, at the same time we are witnessing the presence of proto Elamite cultural materials near some key sites and consequently remarkable increasing in trade exchanges with distant areas. In fact, some evidence of foreign merchants with Banesh/proto Elamite elements that has specialization on storing goods, commodity management and trade in long distances. These evidence have been documented by archaeological excavations near Shahdad, Konar Sandal and Shahr i Sokhta. All these sites are the big cities in the first centuries of third millennium B.C. It seems that in spite of expansion of Aliabad culture in Kerman, Baluchestan, Makran and near Sistan since 3700 B.C to 3300 B.C that consequently followed by local cultures in each area from 3300 to 3000 B.C, the main factor for starting and developing of urbanization in south east of Iran is connected to presence of proto Elamite culture and building the exchange centers or Bazar in the areas with good potential for the natural resource. These areas became the urban centers in the beginning of third millennium B.C. In fact, the art of those merchants was learning to local people that how to control their valuable resource and crafts for exchange and interaction with the other people.
Proceedings 24th ISUF 2017 - City and Territory in the Globalization Age, 2017
The modernization of a second order city The Iranian cities like all cities in Muslim world were influenced by western modernization and had major changes. Before 1920 the traditional Iranian cities, including Kermanshah, shared the components and spatial relations of the so-called Islamic cities: city wall and gate, madrasih (religious school), hammam (public bath), bazaar (commercial district), citadel (governmental palace), Friday mosque, Mahallas (residential neighborhoods) that were divided often based on different ethnics or religions criteria and hierarchical networks of winding alleys and the numerous cul-desacs that link the houses to the city center (Borumand, 2009; Kheirabadi, 2000). In 1920 this traditional pattern experienced the beginning of new phase in urban and structure change (Ehlers and Floor, 1993; Marefat, 1988). The first steps for modernizing of Iran, especially Tehran as the capital, were taken during the regimen of Naser-ed-Din Shah in Qajar dynasty by the 1870s after his visit of Paris (Katouzian, 1996). But it was not fundamental until the early 1920s with monarchy of Reza Shah during Pahlavi dynasty (Habibi, 2006). The importance of urban modernization study in Iranian-Islamic Abstract. Pre-1920 cities in Iran were characterized by a number of features shared by other traditional cities of Islamic world. Although often criticized for their Eurocentric nature, the features of "Islamic city" can be useful as starting point to analyze the modernization process of these traditional cities and their crucial impact in their structural transformation. As the traditional cities of the Islamic world have been much more studied than the twentieth century changes that have transformed them, we need more holistic and integrated understanding about the changes derived from the modernization process. To explore the broad and widespread of their metamorphosis, it is more enlightening if we study second order cities, rather than studying the transformations of major capitals such as Cairo, Istanbul or Teheran, where interventions are more exceptional and more rhetorical. Therefore, this paper aims to study the historic core of Kermanshah city, to understand the link between urban and social transformations due to modernization process by tracing it historically. We will focus, particularly, on studying the stages of urban transformation and changes of urban morphology as well as conflicts and differences between traditional urban features with the modern ones. In other words, we are interested in understanding how traditional morphology and structure of residential and commercial zone are affected by the opening of new and wide boulevards in course of modernisation process, and how these changes influence everyday people life.
The Tale of Two 1001-Night Cities , 2021
This contribution analyses the urban identity and historical patterns of spatial development in ancient Baghdad and Isfahan, according to Actor Network Theory (ANT) and Actor-Relational Approach (ARA). In the case of two different historical urban hubs (Baghdad and Isfahan). This article demonstrates how in the course of history, those interactions between various path-dependent networks have produced various, but specific types of urbanity in this region. It aims to show how ANT could clarify the embeddedness of dynamic actor-networks within the Middle Eastern urban spaces. This contribution argues that the institutional settings, customs, and use might even be more crucial for the issue of local identity, precisely because in effect they influence and shape urban living, institutions, form and infrastructures through time.
NAZAR Research Center (NRC), 2021
Spatial organization is a concept derived from a systemic view of the city and its components. It considers the city with a meaning more than the algebraic sum of its physical components. Its meaning is derived from the regularity, ratio, and relationship between components of the city. The spatial organization of a city is a result of the agreement between residents in the formation of the city. According to this perspective, the constituent components of the city in every civilization are formed based on a particular organization and discipline resulted from their similar cultural framework. Therefore, the spatial organization is a distinguished cultural aspect and identity mark. The travelogues of the orientalist of the 9th to 13th AH are the key sources. Although they did not address the city with a clear and systematic view, by mentioning the social life events and describing spaces and significant city elements, provided a mixed image of the spatial organization of the city. Analysis and comparison of the descriptive and specialized findings to explain the spatial organization of the city provide new interpretations about the nature and method of the formation of the Islamic-Iranian city. The current paper aims to address the formation of the particular spatial organization of the Iranian city functionally and semantically. In this regard, the components of the spatial organization are studied in terms of its role in the structure of the "whole" city and the interaction relationships. Research method is historical. Data collection was done using library method, including travelogues and technical resources. The relationship between tourists 'descriptions and experts' opinions of Iranian cities and its spatial organization was done through rational inference and analysis of findings. The city space organization is the product of an attitude towards the city as an independent whole. The necessary condition for finding the meaning of the city as a "whole" is the purposefulness of the components and the regularity between them that realizes the formation, development, and evolution of the city in the form of a dynamic organism. In the Iranian city of the Islamic period, four components form the territory, center, structure, and small units, model, and particular relations of the spatial organization of the city. In a general classification, among the four key components of the spatial organization of the Iranian city, due to its creating feature, the center is the necessary condition. Also, due to the service role, other components, along with the center are the sufficient and complementary conditions for the realization of the city's spatial organization.
2021
This contribution analyses the urban identity and historical patterns of spatial development in ancient Baghdad and Isfahan, according to Actor Network Theory (ANT) and Actor-Relational Approach (ARA). In the case of two different historical urban hubs (Baghdad and Isfahan). This article demonstrates how in the course of history, those interactions between various path-dependent networks have produced various, but specific types of urbanity in this region. It aims to show how ANT could clarify the embeddedness of dynamic actor-networks within the Middle Eastern urban spaces. This contribution argues that the institutional settings, customs, and use might even be more crucial for the issue of local identity, precisely because in effect they influence and shape urban living, institutions, form and infrastructures through time.
Call For Papers: Iranian Cities, an emerging urban agena at the time of drastic alterations
Increased attention has been directed towards Iran in its various political, economic and social aspects in recent years. This is partially because of the new, although contested and unstable, reconcilement of the country’s relationship with EU and US that has brought about a new wave of flows of people, capitals, information and attention towards the country. However, this is only the last episode of a longer chain of crucial political changes in the past four decades that have had direct and significant impact on the material and un-material structures of Iranian cities and on the national urban agenda.