Context-based conceptions in urban morphology: Hezar-Too, an original urban logic?

Abstract

Due to the complex nature of the city, neither scientific studies nor perceptions can thoroughly address its substance. Each study reveals part of the city’s synthesis, whereas other parts remain undiscovered. What is revealed is highly dependent on not only the interpreter (subject) per se but also the interpreter’s perspective and scientific system. This system includes ways of measuring and mapping the city, pre-defined spatial logic and relationships, the vocabulary for presenting the concepts and characteristics identified through the comparisons, and filters for the observations.As an example, in studies of “Islamic cities”, the subjects have primarily been located within one globally defined, Western-based framework that has obscured some aspects of cities in all previous studies and descriptions. This paper argues that understanding and applying context-driven concepts can be a means of widening the existing framework and approaching the unrevealed dimensions of cities. As an example, this paper discusses how a literal-philosophical concept, Hezar-Too (thousand-Withins), can illustrate and illuminate the pattern of “Iranian-Islamic cities” as a subgroup of “Islamic cities”.