From Grand Bazaar to the Sprawl of Shopping malls in Tehran
Focusing on the transformation of Tehran, from the perspective of the
expansion of mercantile zones, brings attention to both Grand Bazaar and
Shopping malls. Bazaar has been the backbone of Tehran’s urban
structure, while it has also been the center for social and cultural
interactions. On the other hand, shopping mall is the phenomenon of the
contemporary urban leisure; shopping mall is the dream world of the
consumer.
Bazaar is one of the main structures in the spatial organization of
Iranian traditional city; defining the main body of it. In many of these
cities, transportation roots are established according to the location
of ‘Bazaar’s main Rasteh’; and Bazaar is integrated into the main layout
of traditional Iranian city (Pourjafar et al., 2013). Bazaar is a
structured social space inherited from the pre-capitalist Iranian City.
It is usually formed in a linear axis upon which public and socio-
cultural spaces are arrayed. In other words, Bazaar used to be the
linear distributor of culture and status while generating the urban
pattern. In the social and economic context, as Ashraf (1989) argues,
merchants stood on top of the social groups in Bazaar; they impacted the
traditional society highly, regarding their religious tendencies and
economic support of religious leaders.
By the 1930s and 1940s, a number of commercial zones appeared along the
new streets, creating shopping sub-centers. These centers challenged the
vitality of bazaar (Amirhamadi & Kianfar, 1993). This was the beginning
of the time of de-monopolization of Bazaar. Due to transformation of the
city into a more modernized and facilitated urban setting, culture
eventually started to transform.