Investigating the Spatial Organization and Structure of Iranian Cities till Mid Qajar Era and Presenting Pattern of Traditional Structure of Cities in This Era

Iranian traditional cities were created with a system based on experiments and gradual establishment of society through time. Qajar era is especially important in Iranian art history. Until mid Qajar era, Iranian cities’s architecture mainly took benefit of its common traditional architecture that is already seen in most desert-surrounding cities. Till this era, there was not any connection between Qajar and western architecture and it rooted in principles of Iranian urban planning and architecture that were indicating traditional properties of the country formed as traditional cities structures. Later by entering of modernity thoughts during reign of Nasir al-Din Shah, several variations were seen at spatial organization of Iranian cities including Tehran and Tabriz. Identifying these variations requires profound recognition of traditional structure of Iranian cities during Qajar era to the mentioned time juncture to clarify the fact that how our cities have passed from the traditional to modern stage. Therefore, the main object of this study is investigation of the spatial organization and structure of Iranian cities during Qajar era and, finally, presenting pattern of traditional structure before entering modernity to Iran. The results show that there is not any main difference between spatial organization and structure of Iranian cities until mid Qajar and ?afavid eras. Architectural figure of most spaces are in direct relationship with their functional content and social concept and urban and work spaces are intensively merged, and organization of urban spaces is still based on main bazaar axis of the city and governmental citadel area.