Bāghshahr: An Overlooked Potential in the Tourism Development of Natanz(The Necessity of Moving Beyond the Commodification of the Cultural Landscape in Tourism Development and Emphasizing the Concept of Place)

Rajab Bojani, Negin; Nosratian, Reyhaneh; Baqerzadeh, Shaqayeq; Okhovat, Sayed Parsa

doi:10.22034/toc.2025.547076.1205

Bāghshahr: An Overlooked Potential in the Tourism Development of Natanz(The Necessity of Moving Beyond the Commodification of the Cultural Landscape in Tourism Development and Emphasizing the Concept of Place)

https://doi.org/10.22034/toc.2025.547076.1205

Volume 7, Issue 24
Spring 2026

Pages 6-15

Document Type : Original Research Article

Authors

Negin Rajab Bojani

Reyhaneh Nosratian

Shaqayeq Baqerzadeh

Sayed Parsa Okhovat

Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture, College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Natanz, a Bāghshahr (Garden City) born from the historical interrelationship between humans and nature within the valley-shaped landscape enclosed by the Karkas Mountains, embodies a distinctive landscape identity for this territory. Considering the city’s unique natural characteristics and cultural landscape, Natanz possesses significant potential for attracting visitors, and tourism has long been viewed as a strategy for enhancing urban livability. However, the city as it stands today cannot be regarded as a tourism-oriented city. At the same time, given the authorities’ efforts to promote tourism development, Natanz is currently exposed to various pressures related to tourism expansion. Therefore, before implementing any new development plans, it is essential to critically examine the reasons for the inefficiency of previous projects to address past shortcomings and mitigate existing deficiencies in future strategies. This article seeks to investigate the essence of Natanz’s Bāghshahr identity through a holistic and ontological approach, employing concepts such as place (makān) to explore the underlying causes of inefficiency in tourism development across three levels: Area of Intervention: Revitalization of Urban Spaces, Area of Influence: Empowerment of the Local Community, and Area of Comprehensive: The Dominance of National Development over the City. Furthermore, it aims to interpret the role of Natanz’s Bāghshahr character in shaping the city’s tourism development trajectory. This study adopts a descriptive-analytical methodology, grounded in field-exploratory observation and library-based research. It employs the walking approach, recognized as a distinctive method in landscape research, to investigate the subject matter. This study reveals that the tourism development of Natanz, instead of being grounded in an understanding of the urban landscape, has resulted from spatial reductionism, heritage commodification, and the absence of a multidimensional and integrative perspective. In other words, tourism development has approached the city not as a holistic place, but through a fragmented and object-oriented lens, one that perceives heritage merely as a museum exhibit, detached from the cultural landscape and the unique characteristics of Natanz. Moreover, rather than viewing tourism as a strategic tool for enhancing urban livability and the local community’s well-being, heritage has been treated as a commodity serving the tourism industry. For a city like Natanz, a historic Bāghshahr rich in cultural manifestations of this place-making element, an ontological understanding of its Bāghshahr identity can significantly contribute to the effectiveness of tourism development and, consequently, to the enhancement of the city’s landscape quality.

Keywords

Tourism development

Place

Place-based tourism

Natanz

Bāghshahr

Subjects

tourism

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