Masterpieces Of Iranian Architecture

Sheikh Lutfallah was an Arabic-speaking Shiite, an imam and teacher of Islamic law, whom Abbas made part of the imperial household. The sheikh resided in this mosque, a rather novel building in that its design is a conflation of two traditional architectural types. The entire mosque is a centrally planned domed space, which is typical of commemorative mausoleums, not mosques, but this building does not house a tomb. Inscriptions call it a mosque, but it lacks the typical courtyard, iwans, and minarets. However, it does have the essential mihrab niche and is oriented toward Mecca. Multicolored tile veneer sheathes the exterior in a pattern which resembles prayer rugs applied to a vertical surface. Muqarnas faced with intricate mosaic work are suspended over the entrance arch. The interior is often recommended as the most perfectly balanced space in Persian architecture. Filtered light entering through windows in the drum of the dome flickers across the mosaic-lined walls and dome. Eight pointed arches on the walls, outlined in turquoise, bring just enough geometric discipline to this numinous, coloristic space to keep worshipers from entirely losing their earthly bearings.
The Shah Mosque (1611-1666) on the new Maidan replaced the Great Friday Mosque as the center of Isfahan religious life, although the latter remained open for assembly and prayer. Compared to the Mosque of Sheikh Lutfallah, the Shah Mosque has a traditional Iranian design: a four-Iwan courtyard, the main Iwan flanked by minarets, and a towering 170-foot high-domed chamber in front of the mihrab niche. The importance of the control of education in the Shiite state is evident in the unusual presence of two madrasas (theological schools) flanking the prayer hall, each with its own arcaded courtyard. Because both the Mosque of Sheikh Lutfallah and the Shah Mosque had to be oriented toward Mecca, they are turned at an angle with respect to the maidan on which each had its monumental entrance portal. In each case, the architects diminished the disorienting linkage between portal and mosques by locating the change of axis in an entrance corridor.
Unprecedented use of color dominates the decoration of the entrance gateways, domes, minarets, and some interior spaces of both the Shah Mosque and the Mosque of Sheikh Lutfallah. The use of polychromatic tile as a surface ornament was known in other periods of Iranian history, but it was the Safavids who established colorism as the most salient characteristic of Iranian architecture. Before the Safavids, colored tiles would be used to accent certain architectural elements, but artisans working for this dynasty would cover every surface of a building with colored tiles, marble, plaster, or painted wood. Architectural historians see this propensity for elaborate surface decoration as a triumph of Persian aesthetic purpose over Turkish structural values. The application of colored tile patterning (i.e. curvilinear arabesques, floral designs, kufic inscriptions, and imitation tile “carpets”) hides a building’s structure. It prevents the viewer from contemplating the workings of the physical laws which keep the building standing up. Thus, a huge building can be made to seem rather weightless, like an otherworldly miracle hovering on earth.
The buildings described here are a handful of the 162 mosques, 48 madrasas, 1,802 commercial buildings, and 283 baths that purportedly existed in Isfahan in the 17th century. After the death of Shah Abbas I in 1629, the Safavid dynasty endured for about a century, but, with the exception of the reign of Shah Abbas II (1642 66), it degenerated from the heights achieved under Abbas I. Isfahan was conquered by the Ghilzay Afghans in 1722.