Kashan: an Iranian City in Change

In Iran over the past 50 years the demands of modernity have created a deep uncertainty about the role and significance of the bazaar, the street, the garden, the house. Forfeited the old ways of living of the extended family and become inefficient the type of house-mansion, organized around several courtyards and the function of the bazaar grown feeble in favor of other forms of distribution and shopping, you see no alternative on the horizon. This book is intended primarily to document scientifically and without nostalgia an extraordinary urban and architectural phenomenon and the rich social substratum, which inspires it from. The first part (chapters 1 to 4) starts with a brief introductory chapter on the location, the hinterland and the urban morphology of Kashan. This is followed by a chapter on one of the most vital subjects as far as Near Eastern cities are concerned, the water supply. There we attempted to reconstruct the courses of the main qanats (the subterranean water conduits) which provided the city with water and the courses of the secondary qanats which fed water into these main qanats. This is followed by information on the distribution of use water and drinking water within the city. After these physical aspects we turned to a topographical overview on the base of written Oriental and Western sources. It follows a section on the historical inscriptions. The second part (chapter 5 to 10), contains an analysis of the urban development on the base of water channels, routes and the urban landscape. It starts with the earliest periods, followed by a methodological discussion and moves to the assumed planned Sasanian city and the phases of spontaneous growth of this city as a result of gemmation and sprawl which characterize the formation of the medieval city. The development of this medieval city is followed up to the Timurid period (end 15th century). A specialization of the urban fabric led to the reshaping of the city in the Safavid (16th century to 18th century) and later periods. Great importance for the documentary base of the following chapters 11 to 17 (Typological Process of Mosques in Kashan, Typological Process of Mausoleums and Sanctuaries, Building Unit in Kashan and Bazar of Kashan) had measured architectural drawings implemented by a group of researchers from the Polytechnic of Bari. The subject of the last of the chapter which is connected with urban development and architecture is chapter 18 on the Fin Garden complex, located about seven kilometers outside the western gate of the old city. After an introduction, in which a careful survey of the history of the site is presented, topographical problems are discussed. Concluded is this chapter by a study of the water infrastructure of the garden and its surroundings as well as its architecture. In the last section of the book, a team of students and teachers of the Shahid Beheshti University/Tehran interviewed almost 400 households of the old city with the aim to investigate, whether Old Kashan can exist as a living space further in the future or not and for whom.