Revitalization of What? Rereading the Concept of Restoration based on a New Approach to Space

Despite 60 years of urban planning education in Iranian universities and 55 years of centralized government planning for cities based on comprehensive urban plans, which brings uniformity to all, there is a lack of satisfaction among almost two-thirds of the population in cities. Traces of reducing the city to a building layout and seeking a solution about their arrangement are evident in the first approved master design of the city, created by “Victor Gruen” in 1969. Restoration efforts in the “damaged parts” of Iranian cities started a few decades after Western modernists dominated the cities. Redefining restoration was done in imitation of the West, whose own cities were damaged by modernist urbanization. Contrary to the systemic and holistic view, originality in the modernist worldview is an element. This process is more precise and original if it can lead to a smaller element, which is ultimately the atom. According to this perspective, only things that are tangible and observable can be quantified as real. Based on this perspective, different degrees of restoration of objects, buildings, textures, and the city have been defined. “Objectivity” and “thingness” are the themes of restoration in all degrees of this classification. The Cultural Heritage Organization of Iran developed restoration guidelines for identifying, defending, and interfering in valuable urban textures. The common features of all guidelines are the importance of the architectural form and the emphasis on the city as a real and external object. The perceptual layer of the city, which is derived from the observer’s interpretation when facing the city, cannot be replaced by the evolution and expansion of layers of knowledge about the city or even the dimensions of intervention in the city. As a result, improving fundamental data and adding more layers contributing to city knowledge cannot make up for mistakes made concerning city knowledge. Therefore, how can restoration preserve the place’s existence and dynamism if it is based on an architectural form-centered approach and depends on the architectural form’s proportions, shape, and historical functions while ignoring values, and semantic textures?