مجله هنر و تمدن شرق
پیاپی 28 (تابستان 1399)

What we refer to as the economic landscape of habitats, cities, and villages, is a product of human interaction with nature and the ways in which human societies use, trade, and distribute resources in historical context. Economic landscapes in cities sometimes emerge as urban organs like bazaars and at other times as economic activities and sub-activities. In the past, geopolitical factors and the resources available to a city would shape economic landscapes giving each city a distinguishing set of characteristics. Following the Industrial Revolution, the circulation of capital in cities ceased to be organic and based on essential mechanisms and evolved into monotonous global processes. Following the obsolescence of some professions, the emergence of Piercing Streets, and the asymmetric accumulation of capital historical texture of cities underwent a process of desertion one after another. As the political aspect of the economy became progressively more apparent in the context of cities and privilege-based governments emerged, construction projects around the historical texture of cities became more aggressive and common. Moreover, political economy in urban landscapes has always been affected by social factors so examining economic landscapes and the political economy of cities from a sociological viewpoint can help us gain new insights. The city of Gorgan, like many of other contemporary cities, has not been an exception to the aforementioned process. Affected by numerous social issues such as what Jean Baudrillard calls Hyperreality, the economic landscape of the city is undergoing the process of gradual destruction. Hyperreality, despite being primarily a social phenomenon, is one of the key factors in turning modern life into an aestheticized experience of spectacles. In the context of consumption and in combination with other factors, it leads to the deterioration of the economic landscape in cities such as Gorgan.

One of the components of the vitality of urban spaces is the citizen presence with the aim of “being in space”, which results in the improvement of social relations, increase of security, creation of a sense of belonging to the place due to the increased possibility of individual and collective memories, and reduction of crime in the city. Ritual spaces have long played an important role in shaping urban landscapes. They have been strongly experienced as urban public spaces and have been one of the main reasons for the formation of cities. Today, the physical components of traditional cities, even if survive, lack dynamism and citizen presence, and their activity is limited to specific social and religious occasions. In the two-day field visit to the historic fabric of Gorgan City, what attracts visitors most is the multiplicity of Tekyehs, Hussainiyas, and mosques, which are located in the center of the neighborhoods and considered as public open places with high social, religious and economic potentials. In the past, they have been the manifestation of culture, religion, social life, and formed the social identity of the people living in Gorgan City. However, today, due to the change in lifestyle, people’s needs, and modern urbanism model, they have become inactive centers in the heart of the historic and valuable fabric of Gorgan City. That is why the present study aims to use a descriptive-analytic method to examine the heritage and ritual landscapes of Gorgan City in old and new texts and references, and explore the reasons for the multiplicity of mosques and Tekyehs in this city using related texts and field study.

The study of social nature of urban spaces has been considered in different literature and approaches. Urban space and public space are defined based on the physical and functional aspects of space and the right of presence and equal use for all people; But collective space, as a newer concept, does not rely on physical dimensions- space versus mass - and functionality - the presence of individuals and is defined based on the formation of social interactions and joint activities. Today, with the diminishing social dimension of space in contemporary cities, most collective spaces have been reduced to public spaces. The importance of evaluating space social inefficiency in the historic district of cities such as Gorgan is due to the vulnerability of this part of the city and the positive effects of successful collective spaces on the social dynamics. Assessing the social dimensions of urban spaces located in historic district of Gorgan, the historical position, scope of public, collective spaces in the city’s space, social life organization and the study of changes in these spaces following recent developments and management measures provide the opportunity to discover the current social nature. This study aimed at investigating the evolution of urban spaces in the historic district of Gorgan, based on physical, functional and semantic components. In this regard, the social developments of space have been measured and examined in accordance with the consequences of internal developments and external measures applied to the context. Markets and neighborhood centers are types of urban spaces in the historic district of Gorgan, each of which has varying degrees of social status due to changes. The city’s central market still has a social impact due to its economic role and features such as functional diversity and accessibility. However, the neighborhood center space has lost its social role due to gradual changes in texture over the past hundred years, including a lack of alignment with the development process, an inability to meet the daily needs of residents, and a change in demographic structure. Restricting the managerial measures to physical measures, and the mere continuation of the collective space center’s semantic aspects, focusing on their ritual function, have perpetuated social life as a memory of the past albeit periodically and temporarily.

Locating and establishing cities depends on the natural and climatic structure of the region;, the shape, landscape and consequently the architectural structures form in the harmony with physical characteristic such as topography, vegetation, fauna, water and other factors engaged in the ecosystem. Besides, environmental factors have always remind the identity in the mind of landscape dwellers and users and give meaning to it. Therefore, an old tree, water flow and many other landscape factors remain in the mind and become sacred and symbolic. The diversity of landforms and the mutual relationship of city and its texture, environmental interactions, built structure and formation of landscape with a clear identity is observable in most cities of Iran, including Gorgan. The proximity to forest, river and mountain is another particular characteristic of landscapes in this city. This research aims to study the approaches of confrontation with the nature in Gorgan by using a qualitative approach and based on the interpretations, historical analysis and case study. This research is the result of a group field visit in 3 days in Gorgan. It tries to identify the effective ecologic factors in forming the urban landscape of Gorgan by reviewing the literature and their mutual relationship and introduce the objective and subjective aspects that affect the formation of ecologic landscape.

The concept of vitality has been considered by researchers for many years and several norms have been presented for it. But most of these criteria seem to have taken into account the western concept of vitality. It can be said that the criteria of native vitality have received less attention from domestic researchers in Iran. Therefore, it is necessary to re-read the concept of vitality based on Iranian cultural resources. For this purpose, we have tried to access the concept of this category in the Iranian view by using the concept of the vibrant city based on two examples of written cultural works of Hafiz Divan and Medina Al-Fadhil Ibn Arabi. We have compared and adjusted these views with the opinions of contemporary domestic researchers and then with the views of non-Iranian researchers.What similarities or differences can be found between the background of Iranian culture in terms of the desired dynamism and vibrant city and the views of contemporary Persian or non-Persian language experts in this field? The current study aims to examine the degree of conformity of Iranian experts’ views on the vibrant city with the background of Iranian culture.This study analyzes a set of data with a qualitative approach to content analysis which is based on the study of ancient Iranian cultural texts, library information, documents, and the opinions of Iranian and foreign experts. The research methodology has been compiled to formulate the hypotheses of this study and to extract the concept of vitality in Iranian cities based on its cultural resources. In this article, the selection of contemporary Iranian researchers to reflect their makeup has been done based on the amount of use of the basis of the researcher’s significance in the issue of vitality in the cultural space of the West and also the attention of Persian-speaking audiences to their votes. From the conceptual comparison of contemporary definitions, we find that local experts have so far paid more attention to the micro and physical norms of vitality such as pedestrianism and legibility, nightlife, green spaces, diversity and aesthetics, and the most important principle of vitality for them has been the improvement of environment quality. But foreign thinkers have paid attention to the macro-standards of vitality, such as the dynamism of the regional economy, global attractiveness and tourism, resilience, the dynamism of urban areas, the dynamism of neighborhoods, etc. And for them the improvement of environment quality has been only one of the features of liveliness. Difference in these theories can reflect the culture, needs, and attitudes of people in different cultures. In addition, some of the other criteria provided by foreign thinkers improve the quality of people’s presence in the city. However, some of the main criteria provided by Iranian scientists (such as pedestrianism) simply consider the presence of people as the goal. But criteria such as the people’s continuous and bilateral interaction with the government or healthy economic competition lead to a positive, conscious and effective presence of the people in urban spaces. The city is lively and dynamic due to this presence. On the other hand, after studying Farabi and Hafiz’s attitudes to the vibrant city, it was found out that non-Iranian views on the ideal city overlap with a part of the history of Iranian culture. As an example, one can refer to the concept of sense of place and peace in the city desired by Hafiz and Farabi. These concepts have been highly emphasized in the views of Western urban planners. Perhaps the great emphasis of contemporary Persian-speaking scholars on physical concepts can be considered a weak point in the concept of contemporary vibrant Iranian cities.

Mountains have been the sources of blessing and mercy for human beings since long ago. In ancient civilizations, most of the religious rituals were held on top of the mountains because they were considered as the closest place to the sky and the position of the gods. Moreover, living in the mountain has been a sign of detaching from the earthly belongings and attaching to the otherworldly interests. But, due to geographical reasons, the mountain has been of greater importance for Iranians. Mountains’ being the source of water has been the most important function for the Iranians and, additionally, their defensive and sustenance-provisioning functions and pleasant weather and other contextual functions have caused these mountains to have mental meanings for Iranians apart from being objective and contextual elements. To Iranians, the mountain is a center and a symbol of paradise and Iranians used to engage in worship in the mountains; in various historical epochs, mountains have always been praised by Iranians. But, with the pass of time and entry of religion and modernity in two historical stages, the importance and functions of this historical-natural element have been reduced for Iranians. We are currently witnessing that the reduction in the mountains’ functions and their importance in the people’s lives have led to the decrease of their significance in the minds of the people residing the piedmonts of Alborz in such a way that, despite a great many of emphases in the scientific studies and comprehensive urban plans, Tehran’s residents cannot presently enjoy the blessings and advantages of their northern mountains and they have also become indifferent to the destruction of them. The authors of the present study believe that these mountains currently have numerous meanings in the minds of the people from Tehran but these meanings are not so accentuated to render Tehran’s residents sensitive to the destruction of and abuse to the mountain and, in general, this issue is not currently a priority and a demand for the people of Tehran. Thus, the present research paper aims at finding the mental meanings of Alborz in people’s minds through the use of a phenomenological study. The findings will be subjected to theme analysis based on hierarchical categorization according to the theories by King, Ryan, and Bernard.