Hierarchical Pattern of the Place Meaningfulness through Establishing Events in the Urban Public Spaces (Case Study: The Central Pedestrian District of Rasht)

Human is a social creature that needs interaction and relationship with others, hence he needs some spaces for presence. The quality of such a presence depends on the meaningfulness of the space and consequently on the place creation. Places find their meanings based on the events taking place there. This is why the place is defined as a part of the space that is specified by the social relationships with their own meanings and values. Place making encourages people to consider the public spaces as the heart of their society and reimagine or rebuild it.

This research attempted to make Rasht public spaces more meaningful through the social activities and events and hence to promote such spaces to places.

It was a qualitative research based on the phenomenological approach. The related phenomenon, i.e. the conducted events at the central pedestrian district of Rasht during the spring 2017 up to the spring 2019 were scrutinized based on the real experience of being and confronting with the places extracted from the in-depth interviews.

The results led to a hierarchical model of meaningfulness of events for place making among the audiences of the events and the urban space management. The “cause of presence” is the minimum setting for the meaningfulness of the place making among the citizens, while the urban space management plays the most important role in paving the way. The higher degree of meaningfulness belongs to the “pleasure of the presence”. Although the role of the urban space management is not so prominent, however, the quality, type and degree of companionship are still the responsibility of the urban space management. The factor of “degree of effective participation in the event” creates a more meaningful and higher degree of place making.

The most meaningful degree of place making for an event is the “degree of advancement of the event space”. At this level, the audiences show their own creativity and ability to the public and hence they gain a deeper self-scrutiny.