Spatial fragmentation and bottom-up appropriations: the case of Safavid Isfahan

Abstract

ABSTRACTIt is widely claimed that there was a clear spatial continuity in the evolution of the traditional Middle Eastern city, with every new development the result of an intelligent, albeit unplanned, evolution of pre-existing doctrines of construction. However, as far as the new Safavid urban development of seventeenth-century Isfahan (in Iran) is concerned, it is possible to distinguish a spatial fragmentation, in terms of urban pattern and urban structure, between the old texture and new extensions.