Iran Travel Guide
Ali Qapu Palace (Kaj-e Ali Qapu), Isfahan
Ali Qapu Palace, or the High Gate, is a slender seven-story building, like a large prism that breaks the straight path on the western side of Imam Square, to dominate their mole. Built by Shah Abbas on a Timurid building before was used as a seat of government by the Safavid rulers, and was the reception area and main entrance to the palace complex that stretches west of the plaza within a large park.
Thin wooden columns, similar to those of Chehel Sotun, holding a wooden coffered ceiling on a balcony overlooking the plaza for its western side, opposite the Lutfallah Mosque, with a superb panorama over the whole Imam Square, the Old City and the substance of the sharp mountains that surround Isfahan. From here, the emperors and their guests viewers exercised polo tournament and the fight, which were developed in the plaza at its feet. Read the rest of this entry »
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Imam Mosque (Masjid-e Imam), Isfahan
Before Masjid-e Shah, or Mosque of the Shah. Not only this is a masterpiece of Safavid art, but of world architecture. A unique monument in grandeur and perfection, which is displayed at its best throughout the architectural knowledge of the Shahs of Persia. It was built by Shah Abbas the Great, and his erection took 26 years, being completed in 1638, when the sovereign had already died. Its plant is 120 x 130 m.
The great portal of entry, in line with the square shape, however, an angle with the axial line of the mosque, as it turns 45 degrees to orient themselves toward Mecca. The same is true Lutfallah Mosque, Isfahan and other sanctuaries.
Upon entering the mosque, the visitor is dazzled by the glittering kasis decoration, polychrome earthenware tiles with glaze, covering every last square inch of walls, arches, domes, arches and floor, and the beautiful natural lighting owns the sanctuary, with an endless game of light and dark shades that create a magical atmosphere for a ghost. Read the rest of this entry »
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Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, Isfahan -part 2-
Above the portal, stands in the background the great dome of glazed earthenware, which is distinguished from others of Isfahan for their predominantly cream-colored, unlike the typical blue and green domes of the city.
Examining the elevation of the building, the dome breaks the symmetry of the facade, to be slightly displaced to the south. This responds to the body of the mosque, with the exception of the facade, is rotated 45 degrees to the axis of the Imam Square, in order that the Shrine is a mandatory facing the Qibla, ie towards Mecca.
For this reason, the dark entrance corridor is to provide a powerful trick to connect to the prayer hall. This consists of a single square room, equipped with a luxurious tiled mihrab and dome crowned by the richly decorated circular tiles, floral framed in diamonds arranged concentrically and decreasing size as they move towards the center. The dome rests on a cylindrical drum pierced by 16 windows, lattice, and this in turn on an ingenious system of four scallops angular reach the ground and are interspersed with many other arches, forming an octagon. Read the rest of this entry »
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Sheikh Lutfallah Mosque, Isfahan
On the eastern side of Imam Square is embedded this beautiful mosque, although relatively small (35 x 40 m in plan), is one of the indisputable masterpieces of architecture in Isfahan. Built between 1602 and 1618 at the behest of Shah Abbas, no minarets to call the faithful to prayer, as was the role of private chapel for the royal family. Distance model is also classic Iranian mosque that has no patio or iwans.
The entrance gate opens to the bottom of a square perfectly integrated in the system of arches and galleries of the plaza, its walls covered with tile panels, offering new variations on the usual grounds of Koranic calligraphy and vegetables interlaced decoration Safavid period, enhanced by a high honey-colored alabaster plinth running along the entire base. The great arch that frames the door displays a wonderful stalactites and alveoli in colorful ceramic. Read the rest of this entry »
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Imam Square (Meidan-e Imam), Isfahan
Before the revolution it was known as jomeinita Meidan-e Shah or the Shah Plaza. It is also dubbed as NAQS-e Jahan or the Image of the World. Since 1979, the Plaza with its monuments and cultural property is included in the list of World Heritage of UNESCO.
One of the largest markets of the world’s second after Tiananmen in Beijing and lofty example of urban planning, Imam Square is a vast oblong rectangle of 160 x 500 m, bordered on four sides by a continuous and uniform of two-story arcaded galleries designed to house local shops and stores that are opening their stores every day except Friday. It was built in 1612, under Emperor Shah Abbas Safavid. Read the rest of this entry »
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Masjid-e Jami (Friday Mosque), Isfahan
The Great Mosque or Friday Mosque of Isfahan is the oldest monumental city. It is hidden within the maze of streets and alleyways of the bazaar in the old part, and we must reach it lost by archways, tunnels and arcades full of shops full of goods to the style of an Arab medina.
Barely distinguishable from the exterior facades, as they are encompassed in the motley jumble of brick buildings attached, but once stamped their websites, you can capture the perspectives of their immense interior, in which different artistic periods and periods Iran’s history have left their mark, turning the building into a treatise on Iranian art and architecture.
Have been found in recent excavations, traces of the early eighth-century mosque, and abundant traces of the X century (period Buyid), which were absorbed into the great mosque in the Seljuk era. The floor of the mosque grew larger and more complicated over the centuries with additions that were incorporated by successive sovereigns. Read the rest of this entry »
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ISFAHAN: Half of The World -part 2-
When Shah Abbas the Great rose again to the rank of capital Isfahan, the city remained a powerful city. But the Shah further boosted his wealth to make it the subject of a comprehensive development plan that restructured its streets, plazas, parks and bridges, while embellished with magnificent monuments of religious and civil, which earned the city the nickname NESF Jahan (Half of the World).
Isfahan reached its zenith, and had then, according to the French traveler Jean Chardin, 162 mosques, 48 madrassas, or Koranic schools of theology, 273 hammam, or public baths, and over 1,800 caravan or catering establishments. The Shah also promoted communication between the capital and the periphery building an extensive road network throughout the country, with lots of bridges over waterways and caravan to relieve the stages of the path.
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ISFAHAN: Half of The World -part 1-
Isfahan is like the saying goes the city of One Thousand and One Nights, but also is Iran’s most modern city that retains its streets beautiful scattered remnants of its past splendor of the era of the Shahs. It sees women mostly more than those of age without her chador and headscarf wear the color but without the classic black and in Shiraz started to find more modern, there is already a fact. A wonderful city for its mosques of extraordinary beauty. The focus of most impressive monuments of the city is built around Imam Square, where you can admire the mosques and Imam Lutfallah, Safavid art masterpieces as well as the palace of Ali Qapu.
Although Isfahan drag more than thirty centuries of history under its belt, the oldest remains discovered date from the Sassanid era (the dynasty before the Arab conquest, carried out at 637). The Arabs took Isfahan in 642 and was promoted to the capital of the vast central province of al-Jibal (‘Mountain’), which occupied what was once the Media, the country of the Medes. Continued to prosper under the Buyids (tenth century), whose rise to power was concurrent with the decline of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad.
The Turkish conqueror Toghril Beg, founder of the dynasty and the empire of the Seljuk Turks captured the city in the middle of XI and made capital of his vast domain. But it was with the arrival of his grandson Malik Shah to power in 1073, when the city began to grow and expand to become a metropolis. The domain of the Seljuk empire reached then an extension similar to the Achaemenid and Sassanid empires, and came from Syria and Turkey to China. The arts flourished with vigor in this period. It is the time of the astronomer, mathematician and poet Omar Khayyam Persian. Read the rest of this entry »
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