Sara Jalali - Department of Architecture and Urban Planning , Qazvin Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qazvin, Iran
Zohreh Davoudpour - Islamic Azad University, Qazvin Branch, Iran
Manouchehr Tabibian - Islamic Azad University, Qazvin Branch, Iran

As the pilgrims and tourists have been always present in Mashhad, meeting their needs has been constantly prioritized in urban planning especially the renewal and reconstruction projects carried out in the holy shrine surroundings. However, recent years have seen a change of perspective toward pilgrims. These changes have been induced by both global and national politics. That is why great changes can be observed in the urban form and structure which are faster than ever before. The present research aims to analyze the discourse of the ninth and tenth boards of government to explore the effect of policies made in the tourism sector and see how tourist attraction has been perceived in urbanistic discussions. It eventually aims to explore the trend of changes made to the form of Mashhad city influenced by those  policies the research adopted Laclau and Mouffe s discourse theory and conducted a content analysis of higher-order documents and the interviews made by the main decision-makers published about religious tourism in Mashhad. It delve in to the discourse of the ninth and tenth boards of government and how it affected the national tourism sector. It further delved into the effect of this perspective on the revolutions made to the urban form of Mashhad during the target era. The present findings show that there have been traces of changes in how pilgrims and tourists are perceived in Mashhad and how they induced changes to the urban form and structure of the city as well as the urbanism decision making.

Urban Form, Mashhad, Pilgrimage tourism, Discourse, Ninth and tenth boards of government