Mohsen Ghomeshi

The construction of railways has been one of the symbols of advanced technology and modernity in various societies and is known as a means of expanding and transferring goods, men, and their ideas. During the political-economic circumstances of the second half of the 19th century, the first rail line of Iran was built under the Qajar rule. This was an 8 km railway to connect Tehran to Rey with some small wagons, most local people tended to call it Mashin-Doodi, which translates as Smokey Machine. The railway then appeared in southwest Iran as a means of transport for the oil industry which was booming after oil discoveries in Khuzestan. The intercity railway started to operate in 1923 and was 57 km long, connecting Masjed-i-Soleyman to Dar-i-Kahzineh. It was established for exploitative purposes of foreign states resulting in a few small-scale and temporary projects, but the idea of constructing and expanding rail lines based on national investments finally materialized with the first national railroad.

Oil is non-arguably the major brand for Khuzestan among the Iranian people. Oil discovery brought massive changes to several parts of the province. New settlements were developed for foreign engineers and businessmen, and numerous nomadic people were settled to play the role of labor for the newborn oil companies. As a result, the landscape of eastern Khuzestan became one of the most advanced parts of the country. However, this landscape is no longer prosperous due to a series of events. Currently, settlements and cities within the eastern landscape of Khuzestan are undergoing challenging circumstances, especially in comparison to those in the early twentieth century. This chapter will briefly review the story of the oil industry in the landscape of eastern Khuzestan, including a short recap of the area’s start, peak, and after-oil circumstances. The next step involves studying a case to better understand the situation. Finally, the study will conclude by introducing potentials and possibilities to regenerate this valuable case of Naft-Sefid as a part of this postindustrial landscape. In this sense, the initial data were gathered by reviewing historical records and related literature, and for the case study, observation and documentation play a central part in conducting the research. The qualitative chapter concludes with a discussion of practical potentials derived from analysis.

The industrial heritage of Iran as a clear sign of industrialization in the late Qajar and Pahlavi dynasty was the result of pure efforts, knowledge transfer, and governmental budget. The remains of these sites, includes ample evidence which possess valuable data in various aspects such as construction technology and industrialization in Iran. mainly being ignored or abandoned, Industrial heritage of Iran need serious measures to be protected and being registered as UNESCO world heritage would be a real boon in preserving these sites. This books tries to provide prerequisite for registering industrial heritage of Iran as UNESCO world heritage and analyze the impact of this registration through a holistic attitude.

Industrial heritage has become a very matter of debate among experts as the most significant reminder of the industrial era, it also is of great examples of 20th-century heritage. Nowadays, industrial heritage sites are suffering from intense physical conditions and are being intruded by massive economic projects since they are located in favorable places of towns and possess vast spaces. Conservation methods have mostly been limited to the surroundings of industrial heritage sites and have not considered the extended areas connected to the site. The resolutions should be sought throughout these questions: How do outstanding values of an industrial heritage site affect its buffer zone mapping? Or what should a buffer zone map encompass to protect specific values of an industrial heritage site? During this research ample of evidence is seen which firstly depicts the appreciation of industrial heritage and the tendency to conserve them among the host countries. The main result concluded is a guideline based on the similarities and differences between various types of industrial heritage and their impacts on determining boundaries and zones. In case of increasing the number of case studies, the results of this paper can aid in charge organizations to take more effective measure in developing plans to determine boundaries and zones for different types of industrial heritage sites. The data gathered for this paper was collected through library resources about industrial heritage and basically from academic and universal management manuals of buffer zones. The information chiefly is adopted from registration files received by the world heritage committee of UNESCO. The method of this research is case study research and the method for analysis is descriptive-analytical.