Investigating the Physical Characteristics of Center Emphasizing Western and Eastern Urban Thoughts

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Maryam Rajabi, Elham Sharifian

Abstract

The city in its historical sense is a point where the maximum concentration of power and culture of a community is concentrated. One of the most obvious concepts in architecture, urban planning and design of cities, regardless of time and place, is the manifestation of a concept called “center". Every creature has a center around which its material and spiritual life finds meaning. In different ontology, there is a central world that carries the presence of truth and the whole universe is dependent on its existence. Therefore, in the present article, it was tried to study the concept of the center. The method used in the article is descriptive and the required information was obtained through documentary studies, on-site presence, observation, photography, etc. The physical characteristics of the center in western utopias and Iranian-Islamic cities (as a representative of eastern utopias) were analyzed and their physical criteria were compared with each other. Studies show that Eastern thinkers have paid more attention to spiritual principles such as cooperation, justice, participation, etc. On the other hand, Western thinkers have focused more on the physical aspects of centers in their utopias. However, by studying the centers of historical cities in Iran as Eastern utopias, differences in shape, function, principles, etc. were found between the centers of Eastern and Western utopias.

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