Advisor: Prof. Omar Amireh

Abstract:
Cities are the work of merchants, they exist only for & through them, and they are considered to be one of the major factors that shaped the formation of Arab Islamic cities through out the history of the Islamic world.

This research is divided in to three parts, the first one aims to discuss main issues that restrained the traditional souqs with there potentials, it aims to explore there traditional values, not as formalistic aspects but to get into the process of their formation & to study the hierarchy of spatial values that exist in them, in order to be as a set of guidelines & major frame works to encourage the principles of modem planning towards getting these values into the modem city centers & to preserve them in the traditional fabric that exist in the growing.

The second part aims to examine these traditional values to test a hypothesis that questioning " how people dealt with their urban environment in the souq area through building morphology, building relation to space movement patterns, bylining relation to climatic factors without direct restrictions from building regulations? chiding light on the history of down town Amman formation from the old ages till now, with an analytical study of the formation of down town traditional souqs tissue from the beginning of Circassian settlement until now, searching to test the list of traditional values found in part one in the souq tissue of down town Amman

The third part, discusses the lessons that could be learnt from the traditional model through the building process, decision related to shar'eh & fiqeh, consideration of climatic factors, planning organization and architectural style, to form a wide frame work to enhance the modem built environment in Amman city center souqs fabric.