Scientific Quarterly Journal

Road, Development, Expansion(Role of the Road in Place-Based Development of Sirjan City; From Pre-Islamic Era to Contemporary Period)

Volume 7, Issue 24
Spring 2026
Pages 54-69

Document Type : Original Research Article

Authors

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

2 Department of Architecture,, Kooshyar Institute of Higher Education, Rasht

Abstract
The road, as a structure, is one of the four pillars of the spatial organization of the Iranian city and its most significant independent element. The physical structuring of the road arises from its semantic structuring and its acceptance as a place, rather than a mere object or corridor. It is in this capacity that the road possesses the potential to integrate the city as a landscape phenomenon: a unified physical-semantic system. The semantic structuring of the road is the product of the manifestation of its ontological attributes. If the road is devoid of these ontological attributes, its structural role in the city’s spatial organization becomes disrupted. This is because the city is fundamentally a phenomenon arising from a meaningful, human-dependent order, not a concrete, prescriptive physical entity. In the present article, by selecting the city of Sirjan as a case study, the consequences of the shift in perception of the road—from place to corridor—on the process of place-based urban development are examined. To this end, the trajectory of the city’s transformations from the pre-Islamic era to the contemporary period is investigated, focusing on the road’s role in these changes. Finally, the recent economic transformations linked to the mining industry’s development and its impact on the changing status of the road in the current city’s development are discussed and evaluated.

Keywords

Subjects
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  • Receive Date 11 May 2026
  • Revise Date 20 May 2026
  • Accept Date 30 May 2026