THE EFFECT OF ARCHITECTURAL AND URBAN ELEMENTS ON CITY IMAGE IN LAHIJAN'S HISTORICAL AREA, IRAN

Abstract

New a days, the city image, in particular the emphasis of building's facades, have been given wide attention in city renovation and development. It seems the city images are classified as poor image and rich image by people evaluation which dependent to visual architectural and urban elements in building facades. Building's facades in Iranian cities, especially in historical parts, has its own special character in variety of design, form, material and aspect which have been appeared well in Karimi street in old area of  Lahijan city, located in north of Iran. Base on Lahijan's people evaluation, the study has tried to clarify the architectural and urban elements which influence the city image. Previous studies in building facades features and city image were used to distinguish the way and public evaluation were measured through questionnaire and studied by quantitative method. The outcome showed that design, architectural style, color and shape evaluated are most important elements in city image aspect and it should be considered in future development and historical area renovation.