Regeneration of Historical Fabrics with the Approach of Mental Image and Memory of the Places (Case study: Shiraz Historic Pathway “Khaneghah Ahmadi”)

Abstract

The historic urban fabric has formed in a time process and todays it has been sorrunded by the current technologies and urban development. Although in their past these fabrics had been hierarchical and logical functions but today, in terms of structural and functional cases  it has deficiencies and can not meet the needs of their residents. One of the most important components of urban image maker that promotes a sense of place is historic urban spaces with physical and cultural values and the memories of a group in it and its rich background which leads to forming mental image and understanding map of the cities. On the other hand the mental image or the face of the city is all perceptions, knowledge, beliefs, conjectures and expectations that people have of their surroundings and creates the values, qualities, performances and different priorities in their minds, is a perfect tool for restoring the a historical fabric. Therefore restoring these  fabrics image maker elements in them such as valuable historic, cultural and religious elements can help to solve many problems resulted in lack of the sense of belonging to a place and finally lack of a place. In this study it was tried to use the potentials available in historic passage of Khanghah Ahmadi in Shiraz to make urban images through creating memorable mental images in line with promoting the sense of belonging to a place and strenghening the memories of a place and by rebuilding the passage and valuable historic, cultural and religious elements in it that each of them can be used as an image maker components, it can bring back the spirit of development and vivification. The main goal of this study is functional and the method used to collect the data was documentary and descriptive. Field studies and visual impressions in the study area were also conducted. The results were collected in the form of tables and by using SWOT techniques the sense of belonging to a place with promoting the mental image making in rebuilding the old fabrics were analyzed . the results indicated that the proposed solutions in line with refining or rebuilding the study area should be along with the least interferance and change and the most protection with emphasis on native endogenous and sustainable techniques based on mass participation. As a result strenghening the role of historic passage of Khanghah Ahmadi as a historic – cultural tourist attraction leads to increase in joining tourists and citizens and finally it leads to promoting and developing the sense of belonging to a place with urban memorable mental image.