Towards a Transcendent Architecture: Isfahan and Its Architectural Legacy By Fatemeh Nasrollahi Bachelor of Architecture, March 2010, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran Master of Architecture, June 2012, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada A Thesis submitted to The Faculty of The Colombian College of Arts and Sciences of the George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Art May 15, 2016 Thesis directed by Seyyed Hossein Nasr University Professor in Islamic Studies Abstract Towards a Transcendent Architecture: Isfahan and Its Architectural Legacy This thesis focuses on the architectural factors responsible for the Islamic ideal city to emerge, develop and be sustained. The research specifically examines the spatial and architectonic features of Safavid Isfahan from its genesis to its culmination as the ideal of the capital of the Islamic state. It explores the ideal city as a concept and reality, and analyzes its effects on the built environment, culture and spiritual life. Keywords: Islamic Ideal City, Islamic Architecture, Safavid Isfahan ii Table of Content Abstract ........................................................................................................................... ii Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 1. Ideal Islamic City ........................................................................................................ 2 2. Safavid Isfahan ............................................................................................................ 6 2.1. Historic Form: The City of Isfahan, Urban Fabric and the Conception of Paradise . 9 2.2. Architectural Analysis ............................................................................................ 20 2.2.1. The Imam Mosque of Isfahan ............................................................................. 27 2.2.2. Bazaar .................................................................................................................. 37 2.2.3. Madrasa Chahārbāgh .......................................................................................... 41 3. Future Actions ........................................................................................................... 47 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 50 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 52 iii List of Figures Figure 1. Hierarchy of Being and man’s journey between microcosm and macrocosm ..... 3 Figure 2. Isfahan to the north side by Eugène Flandin, 1840 .............................................. 7 Figure 3. Urban Fabric of Isfahan ....................................................................................... 9 Figure 4. Historical map of Isfahan with its fortifications under the Buyids, Kakuyids, and Safavids. After Šafaqi ....................................................................................................... 11 Figure 5. The maximum extent of the Safavid Empire under Shah ᶜAbbās I .................... 13 Figure 6. City plan of Isfahan during the Persian Safavid Empire era .............................. 14 Figure 7. Three main axes of Safavid Isfahan: the Maidan-i Naghsh-i-Jahan, the Chahārbāgh main artery, and the Zāyandehrūd, the river ................................................ 25 Figure 8. Isfahan and the Image of Paradise by Eugène Flandin, 1840 ............................ 18 Figure 9. Isfahan and its urban fabric, Jāmi Mosque and bazaar ...................................... 19 Figure 10. Safavid Isfahan and Chahārbāgh Pattern ........................................................ 21 Figure 11. City Structure before Islam (left)- City Structure In 11 A.D Century- Seljuk (middle) – City Structure in 17 A.D Century- Safavid (right) .......................................... 23 Figure 12. Maidan-i Naghsh-i Jahan ................................................................................. 25 Figure 13. The public “sense of place” in Maidan-i Naghsh-i Jahan ................................ 26 Figure 14. Four prominent structures in Maidan-i Naghsh-i Jahan, ................................. 27 Figure 15: Imam Mosque of Isfahan ................................................................................. 28 Figure 16. Courtyard, Imam Mosque Source: Henri Sterlin. Ispahan ............................... 29 iv Figure 17. Pythagorean Theorem and mathematical relationships in the courtyard, The Imam Mosque ................................................................................................................... 30 Figure 18. Acoustical features and proportions of the dome ............................................. 32 Figure 19. Portal Muqarnas of the Shah Mosque ............................................................. 35 Figure 20 & 21. Main Portal and Muqarnas of Imam Mosque ......................................... 36 Figure 22. Qayṡarieh gateway .......................................................................................... 39 Figure 23. The linear structure of bazaar .......................................................................... 39 Figure 24. Intertwining of 3 conflicting systems: religious, city grid and bazaar ............. 40 Figure 25. Left: Covered bazaar street: Cupolas, Right: Bazaar aggregation ................... 40 Figure 26. Solṭānī or Chahārbāgh Madrasa by Eugène Flandin, 1840 ............................. 42 Figure 27. Interior garden of college of Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn by Eugène Flandin ............ 45 v Introduction This research investigates the principles and manifestations of the ideal of the Islamic city in Safavid Isfahan. The goal is to demonstrate architectural and urban systems in Islamic architecture of Isfahan not only as theorized by particular scholars, but as practiced by Islamic designers. Further, this study reflects the profound symbolism and cosmology of the Islamic architecture of the Safavid period as means of expressing Islamic values. Through architectural and geometrical analysis, the thesis considers design attributes of traditional Islamic architecture. A close examination of prominent Persian mosques, madrasas and bazaars in Safavid Isfahan, highlights the presence of an ideal vision in the overall structure of the city. It also alludes to the intricacy of geometric and proportional design in Islamic architecture. The findings support the argument that principles of the ideal of Islamic city were discovered and applied by the Islamic culture of the Safavids, constituting one of the most inspiring architectural languages in the history of design. Questions: 1. What is an ideal Islamic city? 2. Why the research focuses on Safavid Isfahan? (why this specific period and location) 3. Why we have chosen the urban planning (and architecture) of Isfahan as a central architectural reality to deal with? (thesis statement) 4. What types of (ideal) actions are to be taken for the future? (findings and conclusion) 1 1. Ideal Islamic City Within the consistent perspective of the traditional society, man journeys between his macrocosmic understanding of the universe and his microcosmic vision of himself. His conception of “city” stands in between these two ends, integrating “the symbolic principles of both views”1 (Figure 1). In this respect, Ardalan, an acclaimed international architect, in The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture, states In the hierarchy of spatial conception or definition, the city is a positive shape set within the basic coordinate system of space. Insofar as the cosmos is defined, so the city is defined, and so man is defined. All three scales are viewed separately and together as determined, persistent, complete, and perfect in their archetypical existence.2 Accordingly, the phenomenon of the “ideal city” has haunted many civilizations including Islam. One of the oldest yet most controversial concepts in the study of Islamic history and culture is that of the Islamic City. Islam is, in essence, an urban religion. Cities, in the Islamic civilization, “evolved from concepts which maintained the city walls that defined the cities’ positive shapes in space and their correspondence to cosmic laws.”3 This evolution is due to our intimate connection with nature and the fact that our inner state is reflected in the external order. Consequently, “cities and buildings, analogous to the forms of nature, appear complete and beautiful at every stage of their growth. As vital forms, they have within them the heritage of their past 1 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar. The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1975), p.79 2 Ibid 3 Ibid, p.89 2 and the seeds of their potential future.”4 Likewise is the system in which the city is an emulation of the human anatomy as well as the cosmic laws. Burkhardt, of the “traditionalist” or “perennialist” 20th century school of thought, devoting his life to the study of wisdom and tradition, elaborates on this analogy and clarifies that the Moslem artist [architect], by his very Islam, his ‘surrender’ to the Divine Law, is always aware of the fact that it is not he who produces or invents beauty, but that a work of art [architecture] is beautiful to the degree that it obeys the