Studies of Islamic/Iranian cities have paid little attention to the concept of Kurdish cities. Most Iranian literature related to the traditional built environment has focused on the human settlements of the Iranian plateau, especially cities located in the center of the plateau and its surrounding area on the slopes of mountain ranges in the hot-arid zone (Lockhart 1939; English 1966; Bonine 1979; Tavassoli 1982; Kiani 1986; Kiani 1987; Kheirabadi 1991; Habibi 1996). Few scholars have studied the Iranian cities in the mountain area of the Zâgros in the west (Clark and Clark 1969); fewer still have studied the Kurdish cities located in the province of Kurdistan (Vasilyeva 2000); and even fewer have studied those cities from the point of view of both environmental and socio-cultural factors. Note that no scholars, not even Clark and Clark (1969), have studied cities located in the west and northwest of Iran as Kurdish cities in the context of Kurdish habits and traditions. Clark and Clark (1969), in their study of Kirmânshâh, one of the largest Kurdish cities, explored the process of city development over the course of time using a sequence of aerial maps, without reference to the role of Kurdish culture in its configuration and in the organization of its various parts. The only exception is the work of Vasilyeva (2000) who, for the first time, emphasised the concept of the Kurdish city in her study of Sanandaj. She gathered valuable information concerning the its historical background. But her work does not deal with the spatial dimension of the city and does not draw comparisons with other Islamic-Iranian cities in order to elicit its distinctive character. Nor does she take into account the role of Kurdish culture in general. This paper examines the author’s thesis, “The design principles of traditional urban cores in Iran: A case study of Qatâr-chyân quarter, Sanandaj,” and adopts an interpretive historical approach to identify features of the built forms specifi
