Palaces and Gardens of Persia reveals the fundamental roles that water, brick, and ornamentation play in Iran's unique architectural heritage. Water is the key element, offering an escape from the arid and unforgiving climate. Brick has been used as a principle building material since antiquity; in Persia it is used to its most symbolic effect in the high walls that forge a barrier between wildness and a protected sanctuary created for man. Ornament is then the element that transforms the buildings, constructed of simple materials, into "Thousand and One Night" fantasies, from resplendent mirrored halls to geometric mosaicked paneling, and from intricate plasterwork depicting exotic birds and flowers to delicate painted murals adorning palace walls.
In both decoration and design, the grand buildings and gardens of traditional Persia consistently refer to "paradise." The very word itself refers to a sense of heavenly perfection, derived from an early Iranian term for "the Shah's royal hunting grounds."
The fine touches of heaven that lie behind the colorful tiled façades of palace pavilions and mosques still shine in this richly illustrated and scholarly work. Enter gardens with intricate fountains and majestic ponds fed by water that is sourced from underground aqueducts dating to the 6th century. From ancient mirrored shrines of Shiraz and geometric gardens of Kashan to the ornate domes of Ispahan, here is a glorious photographic timeline drawn in water, brick, and ceramic ornamentation along the 3,000 years of the region's architecture.
