Resumen de The modernization of an iranian city: the case study of kermanshah
The notion of the Islamic city evoked in comparison with European cities and their modernization process and often criticized for its Eurocentric nature, acknowledges the characteristics’ existence that are shared by traditional cities across the extensive geography, where Islam is the predominant religion. It is not unusual, therefore, to attribute these peculiarities to the shared religious framework, although said framework officially didn’t experience serious modification until twenty centuries, despite the modernization of these cities. Consequently, this study suggests an indirect approach through the study of the modernization process of cities in the Islamic world. The emphasis, thus, no longer rests on specific religious qualities and falls instead on the urban practices and the cultural frameworks in which they are inscribed, resulting from the crystallization of practices and from environmental, social and cultural equilibria in the long-term.
Before 1920, Iranian cities were characterized by a set of features which were common in other traditional Islamic cities in the world. As those traditional Islamic cities have been much more studied than the twentieth century changes that have transformed them, we need more holistic and integrated understanding about the changes derived from the modernization process. To explore the broad and wide-spread of their metamorphosis, it is more enlightening if we study second order cities, rather than studying the transformations of major capitals such as Cairo, Istanbul or Tehran, where interventions are more exceptional and more rhetorical. Therefore, this research examines the Kermanshah city, to understand the link between urban and social transformations due to the modernization process. Tracing city, historically, from its traditional form, as prototypical of the so-called Islamic city, to the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979) and after the Islamic revolution in 1979. We will focus, particularly, on studying the stages of urban transformation and changes of urban morphology as well as conflicts and differences between traditional urban features with the modern ones. In other words, we are interested in understanding how traditional morphology and structure of the city, like residential and commercial zone, are affected by symbols of development ambition in the each era, like the opening of new and wide boulevards, intensification of land use, disciplining space, embellishing the city and etc. Moreover, we want to trace how these changes influence social structure over the time.
