Closer look at archway displayed in B.096. The ornament on the soffit has Kufic words scattered throughout. -MA.
A portal iwan in the Chahar Bagh Madrasa's central court, which "is surrounded by two stories stories of rooms [visible here on the sides of the portal iwan] ... [T]he courtyard of the Madar-i-Shah [i.e. Chahar Bagh] madrasa, with its shaded walkways, whitewashed plaster with the vaulting lines picked out in blue, and shimmering tilework reflected in the pool [see B.098 and B.099], bestows an air of grace and serenity on the building far greater than its architecture might otherwise merit. The expansive scale and confident massing of forms in the complex set the style for architects in the following two centuries" (196). The Chahar Bagh ("Four[-fold] Garden") is "a long avenue ... This elegant boulevard, some four kilometers long, was flanked by the palaces of the nobles, who were encouraged by the shah to add fine buildings in the new capital, and divided into two lanes by a central canal punctuated by fountains and cascades and planted with flowers and trees. It is a realization on an enormous scale and in three dimensions of the typical garden carpet" (Blair and Bloom, 185). "The Madrasa-yi Madar-i Shah [i.e. the Chahar Bagh madrasa], sited in an originally idyllic environment fronting the Chahar Bagh, injects a new dynamism into the traditional four-iwan layout by means of a large extra dome chamber in each of the diagonals (possibly to serve as lecture rooms in winter) in addition to those behind the iwans on the major axes. The cells, too, are unusual in their tripartite division: a vestibule and a terminal recess bracket the cell itself. The main prayer chamber here is not easily distinguishable from that of the Masjid-i-Shah (B.50-75), and the continued intermingling of the two forms in Iran is attested by several joint foundations in Qajar times" (Hillenbrand, 234-5). -MA.
Photograph created 1963. Processing date unknown. Formerly cataloged as B.02.097. Notes written on the slide or index: Chaharbagh.
