Investigating the Role of Historic Buildings in Sustainable Regeneration and Upgrading the Urban Identity (Case Study: Rasht Historical City Square)

Our today urbanization, which is often neglecting ecological contexts, has encountered city and urban community with identity crisis. This issue accelerated by increasing of collective knowledge in city as well as civil demands is deepening and extending urban crisis. The ecosystem not only involves the climatic circumstances but it also includes social-economic and political-cultural topics. Hence, urban symbols and monuments are inseparable components of urban ecosystem. Urban symbols or urban elements as important buildings are architecturally determined in the framework of inter-generation experiences of city and citizens so that the city is both defined by them and also gets its definition from them. They represent the identity and have a direct effect on citizens' perception of city and environment. The present research has benefited from mixed method and after library studies and visits, the field studies have been done using questionnaires. The results have indicated that the existing historical buildings in Rasht city square are of main identity giving elements to the city and square. Therefore, the recreation and redefinition of existing symbols and monuments are on the agenda to redefine the identity of square and city.