An Investigation into the Role of Ritual Landscapes in the Identity of Iranian Cities

For centuries, ritual


spaces have played an important role in shaping the landscapes of cities and the religious and cultural foundations of human societies. Some historians believe that one of the main causes of the city’s formation is due to its ritual and spiritual performance. Thanks to the experience of spatial co-participation, ritual spaces are considered as the strongest collective space experiences in Iranian culture which have created positive environmental qualities for strengthening the interactions and social relationships by having a close relationship with the natural factors such as the water and tree, and enjoying a collective and ritual nature; consequently, they have created the possibility of the formation of a single mindset in the inhabitants of different cities. Since the beginning of the Islamic era, ritual landscapes have continued in a particular way in the perspective of Iranian cities and this have led to the formation of some changes in the bodies of cities, their social life, the perceptions of their citizens, and in general, the identity of Iranian cities.
The present study aimed to investigate the effects of ritual landscapes on the identity formation of Iranian cities through integrating their common form (natural) and subjective (social) content.To explain the effects of ritual landscapes, at first, the common pattern of their naturalistic and social meanings was investigated and then their impact on the identity of cities was studied as the social and semantic milestones. After that, considering the concept of the spatial organization of cities which is a subjective concept and based on the communications of the two main components of centrality and small regions (neighborhoods), the scope of the influence of these landscapes on the identity of cities was investigated at the three levels of the centrality of city in the ritual cities (macro), a network of ritual neighborhoods in the city center (middle), and the independent religious neighborhoods (micro).
In many Iranian cities, a similar pattern of ritual landscapes has caused the development of cities and their neighborhoods, and these common characteristics and effects due to their ritual, social, and semantic nature play a prominent role in the field of landscape perception by the residents of these neighborhoods and towns and this has become part of the cities’ mental and conceptual aspect.