Day 4 - Amir Nezam House

History 

*4 The Amir Nezam House or The Qajar Museum of Tabriz, is a historical building in the Sheshghelan district, one of the oldest quarters of the city of Tabriz, Iran. The base of the edifice covers an area of 1200 square meters. This monument which since 2006 houses a museum dedicated to the Qajar dynasty (1781-1925), was built in the period of the Crown Prince Abbas Mirza (1789-1833). It was renovated by Hasan-Ali Khan, Hasan Ali Khan Garroosy, in his position as the Major-Domo of Azerbaijan, and used as his residence. In the subsequent periods, the house was employed as the official residence of the provincial governors of Azerbaijan. Because of persistent neglect over a long period of time, this building had come to be in such a bad state of disrepair that for a time it was seriously considered to demolish it and build a school in its place. Between 1993-2006 it has been subject of an extensive renovation process and since the completion of this undertaking it has been granted the National Heritage status.

 Architecture ( Walkthrough and analysis )

The entrance of the complex has quite a distance to the main building meaning that it has a rather large courtyard or garden in front of the house. 

Passing through the garden towards the house the first feature visible is the three river-like stream ways that go through the garden into the main pool in front of the building. The interesting fact about these streams is that they were used to carry rain water into the water storage of the house which would be used as water for bathing and non-drinking purposes. These water storages connect to tunnels underneath the ground. These tunnels are called Qanat.

6* A Qanat is a gently sloping underground channel with a series of vertical access shafts, used to transport water from an aquifer under a hill. Qanats create a reliable supply of water for human settlements and irrigation in hot, arid, and semi-arid climates.

The qanat technology is known to have been developed in Iran by the Persian people sometime in the early 1st millennium BC, and spread from there slowly westward and eastward.

Having many different purposes, a Qanat would store, carry or even use water for cooling purposes. As seen in the diagram, a Qanat is used underneath a wind tower to create a natural cooling system.

Another distinct aspect of the architecture in this building is the perfect symmetry of the house and the perfect angles creating them as seen in the photo-diagram below.