The spatial structure of Tabriz in Safavid era in comparison with itineraries and pictorial documents

Until the mid Tahmasb era 1555, Tabriz was the capital of the empire, and until the termination of the Safavid era in1779 it was considered as the second most important city of the Iran from religious, political and economic standpointand following the same importance, architecture was of great importance in the country. During the Qajar era, thesame fame and importance continued and Tabriz was the city of prince and government house and the second city ofIran. Unfortunately, natural disasters such as earthquake of 1779 and other problems such as continuous wars withOttoman Empire caused the changes of infrastructures of spaces and nowadays after three centuries, the researcherfaces many questions about the spatial structure of Tabriz in Safavid era. Since the remaining documents from the erainclude the building along with itineraries and some drawings by some tourists, therefore, the present paper claims thatmany important structural changes has happened in spatial structure of Tabriz. Hence, the aim of the present paper isto study and analyze the spatial structure of Tabriz during Safavid era through comparison of itineraries and pictorialdocuments in order to represent an exact image of spatial structure of the city during Safavid era. In order to achievethe goal, the data are collected using historical-documentary method, texts, sources, and analysis of the data usinganalytic-comparative methods. Among the results of the research the replacement of governmental part from Northernpart of the river to the Southern part, its neighborhood with Eastern wing of the Bazaar, and Sahib Abad Square losingits boom at late Safavid era, the importance of other squares such as Atik square and the changes in physical dimensionof the city all could be referred.

کلیدواژه ها:

Spatial Structure ، Tabriz City ، Safavid Era ، Itineraries ، Pictorial Documents