Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures @ SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE University of Queensland

Safavid Urban Spaces and the Evolution of the Maydan: Pre-Timurid & Timurid Antecedents, Continuity and Change

Collaborators: Sahar Hosseini & Manu P. Sobti 

Introduction

This research is focused on urban institutions and public spaces in pre-modern Persian cities, specifically those between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. For Persia, this was not only a period of radical and internal socio-political transformations, but it was also an epoch of growing interaction with its neighbors while positioned within the network of global exchange. Within this time-space context, that we examine the evolving features of Safavid urbanity. The background of the Turko-Mongol bipartite urban system is an important consideration, particularly its manifestation in the Timurid cities of Khurasan and Central Asia. Given its roots in the mobility and nomadic practices of the medieval Turkmen and Mongol sovereigns, in this urban tradition, the ruler’s palace was located outside the city walls and within a suburban landscape. This suburban landscape, beyond its attributes of hinterland, was dotted with splendid gardens. The royal palaces were located within these enclosed gardens, replete with pavilions and tents. In effect, there existed a clear ‘horizontal distance’ between the city and its governmental center.   In comparison with the Timurid model, early-modern Persianate dynasties such as the Mughals and the Safavids reconsidered their spatial relationship with the city. This research demonstrates that while the layouts of early Safavid cities emulated Timurid models in Khurasan and Central Asia, the later mature (and powerful) Safavid state also developed its own variations of the Turko-Mongol urban scheme. In this layout, the royal compound was connected to the city through the intermediary space of maydan; this was sustained as a precedent for Iranian cities over the next three centuries.

Change in Urban Pattern

To capture these described Safavid continuities and breaks from the Timurid past, the spatial layouts of Timurid constructions at Samarqand, Herat and Shahr-I Sabz are analyzed. The project interrogates how urban space was re-cast in the Safavid capitals at Qazvin and Isfahan, while also examining the urban practices of the Turkmen rulers on the Western frontiers of Persia as an alternative model for the Safavids to adopt. In contrast to previous dynasties, the Safavid period evidences a diminishing gap between the city and its royal spaces (enclave); and a corresponding (and growing) investment in the making of public spaces and the carnivalesque practices of trade. A series of inter-connected urban spaces planned in a Baroque manner, created a transparent, fluid and vivid experience that transcended the stationary qualities of monumental buildings located within the dense fabric of these cities. Gardens, streets, bridges, and coffeehouses emerged as sites of collective action, social exchange, and sensory experiences. Focusing on the Safavid urban centers, particularly Isfahan, we explore the form and nature of urban spaces that emerged from of this gradual shift. Following the assumption that the built environment and spaces of a city are reflections of the society, we also suggest that these profound changes were indicative of the critical socio-cultural changes in the city. This included the replacement of tribal elites with new urban-based notables consequent to the increasing proximity of the royal compound to the city, and to its eventual location adjoining the maydan, which in turn served as an intermediate space between the two domains.

Maydan

Central to the layout of the Safavid Capital was the urban maydan, which provided a transition between the royal palace garden and the city. This research highlights the morphological, functional, and spatial properties of this space and its centrality in the life and metropolitan culture of the Safavid city. We investigate the transformation of maydan as an extra-mural military and recreational institution in the Timurid period, to a multi-functional royal, religious and commercial urban institution that was established following the consolidation of the Safavid Empire.

The metamorphosis of maydan was not just a functional change, neither was it a sudden shift. The functional change was an outcome of the location of maydan and its spatial relationship with the royal compound and urban fabric, as well as state’s economic and cultural policies that were gradually implemented during the Isfahani stage of Safavid rule. Following the Safavid ruler’s plan to shift the religious and economic center of the city to a new location, centered around a new group of elites, the large open field that had traditionally housed polo and Qipchaq events, emerged as the focal point of the new city. Towards its formal recognition, the major physical shift was the addition of double storey shops surrounding the maydan. This urbanistic architecture would clearly define the borders of the maydan, marking the turning point in the history of maydan in the Persian city.

However, beyond its morphological character, we also rely on the performance and social practices, which the maydan accommodated, as embodiments of urban socio-political relationships. As the social practices that themaydan space effectively embraced transformed, its spatial, cultural and symbolic role and place in the urban culture underwent change. By the seventeenth century, the maydan and its attached institutions were not only the ceremonial sites of kingly display, but also the integrated sites of commerce, civic, religious and, political interaction.