The Role of Irrigation System in Shaping Urban Planning in Safavid Cities, an Investigation into Ashraf al-Belād, Iran

Due to the water scarcity in Iran, the urban water system mostly followed gardens when royal gardens were set there. This paper sets out to reinvigorate this debate, in a new way that combines the water and the structural connections between the gardens and the urban landscape. In this direction, it pursues that the structural connections between the gardens and the city were planned based on the water system, as one of the designers' purposes. This paper investigates this idea in the case of Ashraf al-Belād City and its Safavid Gardens Complex by studying historical documents and combining them with current field observation. This city is crucial because of its specific climate conditions and originality. The repetition of the Safavid urban ideas in Ashraf indicates to a meaningful concept that was considered on purpose. The study clarified that the main directions designed in the Safavid period remained in today’s landscape and kept the traces of original urban planning. This evidence showed the structural relationship between the gardens and the city and their revolution over time, based on the irrigation system. Regarding this study, we can trace the original Safavid urban structure in the current situation by following the different irrigation systems through time and their impacts on the urban structure. The Safavid irrigation system clearly had been designed after their gardens and shows a well-planned modular network against an organic unsymmetrical-shaped structure that developed after the Safavid era.

Keywords:

Persian garden , Urban Watering System , Urban Structure , Safavid Gardens , Behshahr (Ashraf al-Belād)