منظر (Jun 2024)
Baharestan Square and the Realization of Civic Space (A Critical Reading by the Spatial Perspective of the First Modern Urban Revolution in Iran)
Abstract
In harmony with other aspects of civilization, Iranian cities, in the face of modernity, have taken a new step in their existence and, alongside the physical transformation and the emergence of architectural and urban spaces with a new configuration, have experienced a novel dimension of social space. Baharestan Square is a tangible example of this new spatial arrangement, which at the end of the Qajar era, outside the established order, transformed into a center of social activism and the libertarianism of the constitutionalists. This study, within the framework of a critical paradigm, seeks to explore the factors and forces that have shaped Baharestan Square as a civic space in modern urban order in the historical space-time of Tehran during the constitutional era. It aims to give voice to the overlooked aspects of this experience by narrating its social space, contrary to one-sided physical or symbolic analyses. Civic space, as the final layer of urban public space, is a living space that, with society’s dominance over it, becomes a discursive and socio-political platform for citizens, allowing the free spirit of society to regenerate through the support of its institutions. Based on the interpretation of this study, Baharestan Square, during the constitutional era, became the possession of the constitutionalists, backed by urban independence and detachment from the cohesive network of public spaces, creating a discursive platform through the presence of the progressive institution of the parliament, associations, and affiliated organizations, as well as the diversity and multiplicity resulting from the formation of a modern society, and also, pursuing demands and litigations with the establishment of the dualism of the government and the nation, which, along with fundamentally disrupting the traditional governing order, brought the social life of the city into a completely novel existence and introduced a new experience of placemaking in the public spaces of the city.
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