Re-reading and Recognizing the Historical Structure and Evolution Chronology of Imamzadeh Jafar District before the Contemporary Changes (Yazd)

Historic towns are full of works and layers that have been hidden gradually under new layers over the time, or some various factors cause deterioration and changes in them. Nevertheless, the story of formation of town's historic cores and their specific components has been recorded in the same layer. In the scientific process of conserving world historic towns, there are efforts to safeguard historical traces, clues and layers of cities properly, so through the meaningful communication between them, we can discover the process of development, evolution and transformation of a town in different periods. Unfortunately, some implemented projects in the valuable urban fabrics in Iran are leading to the clearing of historical layers due to lack of knowledge that causes irreparable damages to the structure of these towns. One reason is the lack of written sources about the historic cores and districts of towns. For example, the development plan of “Imamzadeh Jafar” (AS) shrine of Yazd in 2013 was one sample for an adopted project in which the context was completely neglected that caused interventions and demolition in historical context surrounding the shrine. Due to this attention, this article seeks to evaluate the historical district of “Imamzadeh Ja’far” (AS) through field and library studies and citing the meaning and form of the city and other quarters in Iran, so it can introduce specific elements and district structure, and state hidden layers and their relations to city development, that has been neglected in large-scale projects and in some cases has been cleared.
The present study was performed by using a combination of historical and descriptive-analysis research methods. The results of this research are stating the reasons and backgrounds of development and the briskness of historic town in “Imamzadeh” district, recognizing the historic route of “Shahi” gate to the old “Mosala” of the city and the development process of Bazaar in relation with the structural elements of the district, which is necessary to be considered in urban projects for this zone.