Evaluating the urban cultural spaces based on environmental quality components (Case study: Tabriz City)

Integrating art, industry, and architecture and creating outstanding urban cultural spaces make attractive viewpoints for citizens and travellers, and raise the position of urban elements as the elements of the city’s identity. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the urban cultural space based on structural, perceptual, and functional-social identity. This analytical survey study was conducted on eight cultural spaces in Tabriz, Iran, using a questionnaire and descriptive and inferential statistics. Based on the descriptive findings, the elements of the traditional Bazaar and Ali Monsieur’s house scored the highest and lowest points regarding structural and functional-social identity. Among other elements, the El Goli Building of Tabriz was more successful regarding perceptual identity. In addition, architectural style and behavioral diversity had the most and least roles in selecting urban elements, respectively. A group t-test was used to check the position of each component of the studied styles. The results indicated the favorable condition of the Municipal Palace, Traditional Bazaar, and Eel Goli in all three styles. The urban cultural space was compared based on the identity components between the pairs of existing groups using the parametric t-test. The results showed a significant difference between the average evaluation of the examined couples based on gender, education, and frequency of visits. However, no significant difference was observed between the purpose of the couple’s reference in evaluating the urban cultural environment. The Pearson correlation results confirmed a relationship between structural and perceptual identity components at less than 0.01. In contrast, no significant relationship was observed between functional-social identity components.