نشریه گردشگری فرهنگ
پیاپی 9 (تابستان 1401)

A significant feature of the Iranian city in the Islamic period is the emergence of neighborhoods as subsystems and small groups. The neighborhood has made a great contribution to the conceptual development of civility and community, which are the fundamental components of the Iranian city. These small wholes are considered to be collective structures serving as hubs for social and public relations. Understanding such structures requires a holistic and inclusive view through which we can recognize and appreciate all their aspects. Semnan and Damghan, as two historical and ancient cities, like other historical cities in Iran, have unique textures and structures of neighborhoods. Examining and understanding the neighborhood landscapes of these two cities are of special importance because they can shed light on the mental and social structures of these cities. Despite this importance, this issue has not received much attention. This research aims to identify and develop a framework for reading the landscape of a neighborhood. By emphasizing the landscape of the two cities of Semnan and Damghan in particular, it seeks to answer this question: a) what framework can serve as a guideline to read the landscape of the neighborhood? For this purpose, this study employs a holistic view and detailed observations to recognize, investigate, and interpret the effective factors in reading the landscape of the neighborhood. The results showed that elements such as public spaces of neighborhoods, rituals and religious events, natural elements, streets, passages, uses, and activities, and finally, ethnic and guild-associated commonalities were influential in reading the neighborhoods of Semnan and Damghan.

The social landscape is created by collective life and shared interactions between the people themselves and their environment. The historical texture of the cities narrates the city’s identity and depicts its history, and the preservation of their social landscape is greatly important. Adoption of a suitable approach in terms of the social landscape in the historical texture of the cities depends on the creation of a balance between the preservation of the valuable works of the past in the environment and harmony between their different physical, semantic, and functional aspects and the needs of the citizens and contemporary urban society. Preservation of the social landscapes in the historical texture of cities such as Semnan and Damghan is faced with some challenges. Urban management has moved towards a protective and demonstrative approach, with some prioritization of the physical environment. In contrast, in some other cases, it has physically and functionally equipped the environment to allocate the space to contemporary society without sufficient understanding of the meaning of the space, context, and audience needs. The current article aimed to investigate the different aspects of the social landscape and how they evolved in the historical texture of Semnan and Damghan cities in a way that, through considering the effects of different factors, it would be possible to adopt a suitable approach to preserve such landscapes in the context of today’s urban life. The social landscape is a general and synergistic phenomenon of function, body, and meaning, and paying attention to the key role of people to preserve it over time is very important. A unilateral and environment improvement-oriented approach without considering the social and cultural aspects, the instability of social composition would lead to a drop in public participation and commitment and a decline in the social landscape. The necessity to pay attention to the basic prerequisites such as the validation of capabilities, the intrinsic meaning and inclusive nature of each space, the needs of the contemporary society, the supportive factors of individuals' presence, and the key role of people, allows for the realization of the social landscape as the product of the dynamic experience of the environment by the society and the collective asset with widespread ownership. Some forms of active protection and collective management through restoring the relationship with the places positively impact the survival of the social landscape. Planning a holistic, integrated, and multi-dimensional process to increase the citizens’ attachment to the place and observance of a balance between the preservation and manipulation of the landscape also help with the survival of the social landscape and continuous updating of the users’ relationship with the landscape and interpretation of it.

The "city" concept refers to the recognition of an independent, invisible entity continuously interacting with its various constituent elements. It is an aspect of a social concept that connects the components of a city in a systemic order while maintaining its independence. The definitions of city components and the type of connection between them depend on the social, natural, cultural, political, economic, functional, physical, etc. factors that explain the development and life of the city in a systemic relationship throughout history. The cities of Semnan and Damghan were formed based on the presence of water. The spatial organization of the city, urban elements, and city events and ceremonies are formed in connection with water. In addition to the current objective and subjective factors in the city that determine its overall meaning, in the abovementioned cities, the natural element of water is the most important factor in defining the elements of the city organization. It has an evolutionary and meaningful relationship with the presence of the tree in the city, and in accordance with the concepts and other objective elements of the city, it contributes to the reading of the urban landscape through the elements of spatial organization. Therefore, the present study aims to identify the organizational relationship between the elements of the urban landscape through field studies and observations. It seeks to answer the following question: in Semnan and Damghan, how are the elements of the urban landscape read based on the elements of the spatial organization of the city?The study draws upon a holistic perspective to answer this question by reviewing library sources and matching them with observations. For this purpose, the instances of the city that can narrate the concepts of spatial organization elements were read. In addition to the physical and functional instances in defining the elements of the urban spatial organization, (i.e. centrality, territory, small units, and structure), water-supply infrastructure and trees as natural elements are among the important organizational aspects in the completion and readability of the urban spatial organization elements that distinguish Semnan and Damghan from other Iranian cities.

Landscape is an interdisciplinary discipline and in the analysis of space, it does not pay attention to only the body and physics of the space, but always seeks to understand and recognize the totality and personality of the space, which is the result of the interaction and action of countless social, historical, identity, and activity factors. , physical and the like have been formed. Today, many urban spaces have lost their scenic qualities, even the cities that have historically had a brilliant history in creating quality and meaningful spaces have also lost many of their spatial and scenic qualities. This research aims to study the historical and library sources and the field survey of the historical landscape of the two cities of Semnan and Damghan, as cities that have been historically successful in creating urban spaces, and by examining and analyzing several spaces of these two cities as A case study to identify the cause or causes of landscape decline in Iranian cities.

Water has been quenching people’s basic needs as the first condition of life in human communities. Water has had a significant role in shaping the landscape of cities in ancient religions and rituals in Iran and can be considered a natural element in creating the highest quality collective spaces. Hence, there are myths about it. Given its significance, some ceremonies and rituals have long been associated with this life-giving element, which is historically rooted in the beliefs of the Iranian and ancient religions. Due to its location in the hot and dry desert climate, Semnan has always faced the problem of difficult access to water. The agriculture-based economy and scarcity of this life-giving element have affected all spheres of people’s lives in the region. Water management in this region is considered critical in the city structure and quenching people’s needs. The need for water, as an element that fulfills other needs, has caused people to pay special attention to this element. Thus, water seems to have become a sacred and respected element by getting distant from its functional nature. Considering the three-day field visit to the historical texture of Semnan and Damghan, what draws the attention of the audience the most is the ritual role of water in shaping Semnan and Damghan. This role has had a significant effect on the city landscape objectively-subjectively. Moreover, its proper performance at the city level has created a different quality of space in the neighborhoods of the city. Hence, the study intended to analyze the ritual role of water in the formation of the Semnan and Damghan landscapes.

The desirability of the artificial space, its sanctity and beauty in Iran is dependent on the presence of three elements: water, trees, mountains or hills. The importance of this triad in giving identity and giving meaning to Iranian spaces has determined various ritual places, cities and villages or architectural buildings. This link is a factor in the creation of place as the starting point of a concept, the source of life and the purpose of exploring a community in creating other events. Understanding the meaning in a place is based on nature, arising from stimuli and objective aspects. In this process, the space is identified with its elements and provides the context for the emergence of meaning in the place.Cheshme Ali Damghan is one of the ancient examples of the Iranian spatial triad, which gave identity to the rich concepts of people's beliefs and beliefs in objective aspects. Ritual and sacred concepts of Cheshma Ali Damghan, act as a medium to express the value of meaning with factors such as events, rituals, social behaviors and spatial arrangement, and will determine the value and meaning limits in the place. The meaning discussed here refers to the production of a conceptual place created by people as a natural result of their interaction with the built environment. The main purpose of protecting the three sacred concepts in this place is to try to maintain and continue a relationship based on experience between people and their environment, through which the concept of meaning