Religious Differences and Radical Special Transformations in Historic Urban Landscape

All historic Iranian cities and their landscapes are placed at a specific ethnic, religious or physical level. In the contemporary era, many of these historic landscapes have faced the collapse of their traditional and social foundations and been subjected to the degradation of their cultural, social and physical values. Given the dominant role of religion in the orientation of the political system in Iran, this article examines how religious differences have created great spatial transformations in historic urban landscapes for religious minorities. Selecting the historic Armenian quarter in Isfahan (Julfa) as a case study, it is attempted to propose a new model for the preservation of historic landscapes in ghettos on a national scale in this research. Given the capacities in the constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran, the findings of this research show that the model of federalism used as a public policy can promote social freedom and rights of religious minorities in Iran, on the one hand, and result in sustainability of historic urban landscapes in the planning process by increasing the participation of local community, on the other hand.