Sasanian architecture

Sasanian architecture is the Persian style of building that grew very strong during the Sasanian era (224–651 CE). This was a time when Iranian people made many great achievements. It was the last big Persian Empire before Muslims came. Later, many ideas from this time were used in Islamic architecture.

The Sasanian dynasty, like an earlier group called the Achaemenid dynasty, started in the area of Persis, also named Fars. They wanted to continue the old traditions of the Achaemenids and bring back the glory of Persia.

Origins

The Sasanians brought back beautiful Persian designs and made their own style. Even though Alexander the Great brought Greek styles to the area, the people there added their own touch. During the Sasanian time, Persian traditions came back and influenced buildings far beyond Persia, reaching places near the Mediterranean sea.

Palaces

The Sasanian kings lived in amazing palaces in places like Firouzabad, Bishapur, and Fars, and in their capital city, Ctesiphon, in modern Iraq. These buildings mixed local styles with Parthian dynastic architecture. They often had huge barrel-vaulted iwans, especially at Ctesiphon, where one big hall has a very tall arch.

Many of these palaces had special rooms for meetings, sometimes with a dome on top. The Persians invented a clever way to put a round dome on a square room using a squinch. The palace at Firouzabad is the oldest known example of this design.

Descriptions

The Sasanian buildings from between 350 and 450 CE have a clear and simple style. These buildings look quite uniform, with later ones being larger copies of earlier designs. The main shape is a parallelogram without extra parts. The main entrance leads into a tall, vaulted hallway through a large arch. Besides these halls, the buildings have square rooms with domes. These domes are circular at the base and elliptical when viewed from the side, resting on special supports called pendentives. The rooms connect directly without long hallways in between. The palace usually has a courtyard at the back with rooms opening into it.

The height of the arches in Sasanian buildings ranges from about fifty to eighty-five feet. The domed rooms are squares measuring from 25 to just over 40 feet. The domes are circular at the base but elliptical when viewed from the side. They rest on pendentives instead of drums. The rooms often have small holes in the domes to let in light, and windows are placed between the pendentives.

Sasanian palaces do not have corridors. Rooms usually lead directly into one another. When rooms do not connect directly, they share a common space that is either an open courtyard or a large vaulted room. The doors between rooms are usually of moderate size, but sometimes they are very large arches. Some palaces have many rooms.

The outside of Sasanian buildings often has tall, narrow, doubly recessed arches. Inside, there might have been decorations made of stucco, painting, or gilding, but these have mostly disappeared. The rooms often have small pillars to support parts of the roof, breaking the plain look of the ceiling. These pillars were connected to the walls by low arches.

A special feature of Sasanian architecture was its unique use of space. Architects designed buildings by thinking about masses and surfaces, leading to the use of thick brick walls decorated with molded or carved stucco. Examples of these decorations can be seen at places like Bishapur, Chal Tarkhan near Ray, Ctesiphon, and Kish. The decorations often include animal figures, human busts, and designs of flowers and geometry.

Sasanian influence

Sasanian art brought back styles and traditions from Persia. Later, these ideas spread to places around the Mediterranean during the Islamic period. The designs and buildings from the Sasanian era influenced many other styles, especially Byzantine architecture and Islamic architecture. Many Islamic buildings borrowed ideas from Persian designs.

For example, the city of Baghdad was planned using ideas from Persian cities like Firouzabad. The Great Mosque of Samarra also shows Persian influence, with its spiral shape inspired by towers in Firouzabad, an old Sasanian capital. In Afghanistan, at Bamian, we can see how Iranian art and architecture from the Sasanian time shaped buildings there between the 4th and 8th centuries.

Foreign influences

Byzantine architecture also influenced some Sasanian buildings. At Bishapur, some floors had decorations showing joyful scenes, likely inspired by Roman styles. Beautiful wall paintings have also been found on Mount Khajeh in Sistan.