Day 5 - Behnam House ( School of Architecture )

History 

5* Behnam House is a historical building in Tabriz, Iran.

The edifice was built during the later part of the Zand dynasty (1750–1794) and the early part of the Qajar dynasty (1781–1925), as a residential house. During the reign of Nasereddin Shah Qajar (1848–1896) this building was substantially renovated and embellished with ornamental paintings. The house consists of a main building, referred to as the Winter Building, and a smaller structure, referred to as the Summer Building. The Winter Building is a two storey symmetrical construction standing on a basement. Like many traditional houses in Iran, this house has an inner and an outer courtyard, the former being the larger of the two. In the course of a 2009 renovation project, some hitherto unknown miniature frescoes were discovered in this house which were restored by specialists. The Behnām House is part of the School of Architecture of Tabriz Art University.

Architecture ( Walkthrough and analysis )

The School of Architecture of Tabriz Art University consists of a couple of buildings. The most important and valuable building in terms of  Architecture and the history is The Behnam house. The garden was redesigned after the building was used as the School of Architecture.

The main building has three storeys. 

Going into the building the first  part is the basement  or as now they call it the studio. The roof of the basement has patterns utterly similar to the patterns of the vaults in the Blue Mosque as seen in the picture and diagram. There is a difference between the setting of the bricks. In the blue mosque the bricks were placed sideways creating the vaults whereas here the bricks are placed radial kind of like an igloo. 

 Another fact about the basement is that there used to be ( also is ) a pool inside the house in the basement. This pool was used for water storage and usage alongside using it as a cooling system for the house. 

 Moving to the upper floors another interesting architecture visible are the windows of the main halls. A lot of old Iranian houses used these windows. 

These windows have specific patterns and are usually made from wooden frame. The most mesmerizing thing about these windows are the colors. Numerous colors are used in the making of these windows and a beautiful fact is that when the sun sets or rises 

( depending on the location of the window ) the patterns and colors duplicate themselves on the floors and rugs inside the house merging the colors together giving an astonishing view.