The Study of Safavi Northern Chahar-Bagh Street of Shiraz, Iran; from the Standpoint of Integrated Conservation and Development Based on Historical Urban Landscape Approach

Abstract

The historical urban landscape is a new approach towards the historical city as the product of human interaction with micro ecosystem over the passage of time that has recently gained a special position in urban conservation. This paper begins with raising the question that how this approach can be used to solve the challenges of conservation and development of historical cities. Exploring the conservation documents indicate that viewpoint to historical city has shifted from ‘the atomistic perspective to holistic', ‘static to dynamic', ‘product-oriented to process-oriented', ‘conflict with micro-ecosystem to interact with micro-ecosystem', and ‘the contrast of conservation and development' to the integration of them. The purpose of this paper is to review the northern Safavi Chahar-Bagh street of shiraz in the city master plan to find out how the street conservation and development is based on historical urban landscape. The data for this research were collected through observations and documents review and were analyzed qualitatively. The survey results show that the new doctrines of urban conservation seek to integrate conservation and development based on historical urban landscape; however, the definition of the Historical city boundary in the master plan of shiraz is still based on static and atomistic doctrines that consider historical cities limited to the historical wall. This is while the northern Chahar-Bagh street of shiraz which was the main historical axis of the city during the Safavi period was located outside the historical wall of the city. Not paying attention to this street has caused the gradual destruction of this historical urban landscape, despite the individual protection of some of its elements. Reviewing the case study based on the historical urban landscape approach reveals the need for a reconsideration and revision of the developments urban plans.