The Challenges and Opportunities of Constructing a Cultural-Recreational Center in a Religious Area (Case Study: Qazi Al Saber Shrine)

The following study scrutinizes the challenges and opportunities of constructing a cultural-recreational center in Qazi Al Saber Shrine; and in this regard, the interaction among The Cultural Heritage Organization, The Endowments Department and The Third District of Tehran Municipality to manage and construct a cultural-recreational complex next to a religious area is also taken into account. In this research, approaches such as qualitative anthropology, interview skills, episodic-narrative interviews, focus group and field study strategy have been applied. Moreover, to build a conceptual model, theoretical principles such as “decent ruling & social asset” and “free time & social merriment” have been contemplated.
The results show that the construction of this cultural-recreational complex will contribute to: religion centralization and mosque-based activities, the integration of religious institutions, attracting the young to religious areas, increasing cultural uses, reviving local identity symbols, introducing the Shrine, increasing the funds, cultural cooperation & interaction, increasing Municipality’s social asset, increasing social exhilaration in the area, reducing the cost of cultural-recreational activities and renovating the run-down structure of the Shrine. However, this construction will face challenges like blasphemy, the destruction of regional identity, the destruction of the traditional architecture of the Shrine, the incongruity between the architecture of the Shrine & the cultural-recreational complex, and the congruity between the architecture of the Shrine & the precinct atmosphere.