A Study on Panjeh Shah Neighborhood Center in Kashan with an Emphasis on the Role of the Shrine and the Surrounding Architectural and Urban Elements

The tomb of Imam Zadeh Haroon ibn Musa ibn Jaffar ^PBUH, known as the shrine of Panjeh Shah, is located in a neighborhood of the same name on Baba Afzal Street in Kashan. This tomb used to be part of the Panjeh Shah Neighborhood center. In addition to the tomb, the center of this neighborhood used to be consisted of the reservoir, caravanserai, oil mill, Agha-Shah Bath, passages and malls, mosque, and the old cemetery. The neighborhood center's complex was registered under the number of 5937 on the Iran national heritage list in 2001. The oldest date that can be seen on the construction of the tomb dates back to 956 A.H (1549 A.D), which is engraved on two pieces of altar tiles and shows the old history of this urban area. This urban center has suffered severe damage due to the construction of Baba Afzal Street and the changes caused by unbalanced urban development, and some of the old elements of the complex have been destroyed. Currently, the remaining sections are also in a messy condition. These changes have distorted the neighborhood center's role in today's urban area and made it difficult to understand its original condition. The purpose of this article is to retrieve the last original condition of this urban center before the interventions of recent decades, and the article seeks to answer the question of what plan and layout Panjeh Shah Neighborhood center complex had before the extensive changes resulting from the construction of the street. Awareness about this situation will increase our understanding of one of Kashan's historic neighborhood centers and prepare the grounds for additional studies on protecting this area's urban values ​​and restoration. In this article, with a descriptive-historical method, urban clues and architectural elements, as well as written sources, are studied and analyzed and by comparing them with the remaining images, an attempt is made to retrieve and draw the abovementioned urban center's initial layout. Studies show that the original building of the tomb was formed inside the old cemetery. In the Safavid and Qajar periods, the neighborhood center's complex and surrounding architectural elements and urban elements were completed, and this situation remained until the beginning of the 1950s. After urban changes in the last century, the cemetery was gradually reduced to a small part near the tomb and parts of the neighborhood has also been destroyed or decayed