Iwan

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For other uses, see Iwan (disambiguation).

Multiple iwans and tiled domes of the 16th-century Persian-style Mir-i-Arab madrasa, Bukhara, Uzbekistan

An iwan (

Arabic: إيوان, ’īwān)[1][2][3] is a rectangular hall or space, usually vaulted, walled on three sides, with one end entirely open. The formal gateway to the iwan is called pishtaq, a Persian term for a portal projecting from the facade of a building, usually decorated with calligraphy bands, glazed tilework, and geometric designs.[4][5]
Since the definition allows for some interpretation, the overall forms and characteristics can vary greatly in terms of scale, material, or decoration.

Iwans are most commonly associated with

Iranian in origin and was invented much earlier and fully developed in Mesopotamia around the third century CE, during the Parthian
period.

Etymology

Iwan is a Persian word that was subsequently borrowed into other languages such as Arabic and Turkish.[6] The New Persian form is eyvān and its etymology is unclear.[7]

A theory by scholars like

Darius I
declares in an inscription: "I, Darius, ... had this apadāna constructed". In this case, the word denoted a type of structure, the iwan proper and not the palace.

The term in Old Persian means "unprotected",[citation needed] and the design allows the structure to be open to the elements on one side. At Persepolis, however, the apadāna takes the form of a veranda (a flat roof held up by columns rather than a vault) but is still open to the elements on only one side.

By the time of the Parthian and the Sasanian Empires, the iwan had emerged as two types of structure: the old columned one and a newer vaulted structure; both, however, carrying the same native name of apadana/iwan, because both types are open on one side to the elements.[citation needed]

Ivan is an alternative form of the name, used in Iran, reflecting the Persian pronunciation.[9]

Origins

Many scholars, including Edward Keall, André Godard, Roman Ghirshman, and Mary Boyce, discuss the invention of the iwan in Mesopotamia, the area around today's

Zoroastrian homes in Yazd, where two or four halls would open onto a central court; however, it is not known whether these spaces were vaulted.[11]

The feature which most distinctly makes the iwan a landmark development in the history of Ancient Near Eastern architecture is the incorporation of a

barrel vaults, and Nineveh, where the Assyrians frequently vaulted their passages for fortification purposes.[13]

Outside Mesopotamia, a number of extant vaulted structures stand, including many examples from

Mycenaeans. For example, the Mycenaean Treasury of Atreus, constructed around 1250 BCE, features a large corbelled dome. Ancient Egyptian architecture began to use vaulting in its structures after the Third Dynasty, after around 2600 BCE, constructing very early barrel vaults using mud bricks.[14]

Iwans were a trademark of the

Seljuki era, when iwans became a fundamental unit in architecture, and later the Mughal architecture.[16][17]
The form is not confined to any particular function, and is found in buildings for either secular or religious uses, and in both public and residential architecture.

Parthian iwans

View of iwan at Hatra (present-day Iraq)

Although some scholars have asserted that the iwan form may have developed under the

Tigris River, where the shift from post-and-lintel construction to vaulting occurred around the 1st century CE.[13] Other early iwans have been suggested at Ashur, where two buildings containing iwan-like foundations were found. The first building, located near the ruins of a ziggurat, featured a three-iwan façade.[18] The proximity of the building to a ziggurat suggests that it may have been used for religious preparations or rituals.[18] It could also indicate a palatial building, as it was common for the ziggurat and palace to be situated next to one another in the Ancient Near East. What seems to be a palace courtyard had iwans on each side, which remained a common features well into Islamic times.[19]

The second iwan building is located across a courtyard, and Walter Andrae, a German archaeologist, suggested that it served as an administrative building rather than as a religious center because there is no evidence of inscriptions or wall carvings.

Dura Europos, and Uruk.[22]

Sasanian iwans

The

Taq-i Bustan
features Roman style figures, Eastern-inspired vegetal patterns and crenellations, and wide-eyed, stylized Byzantine-esque angels and mosaic interiors.

Iwan of Khosrau

Taq-i Kisra, Ctesiphon
, Iraq, c. 540

The most famous example of a

Khosrau I after a campaign against the Eastern Romans in 540 AD.[27] The arched iwan hall, open on the facade side, was about 37 meters high 26 meters across and 50 meters long, the largest vault ever constructed at the time.[28]
Early photographs and 19th-century drawings show that the remaining part of the hall has reduced since then.

The dating for the Taq-i Kisra has been debated throughout history; however, a variety of documents detailing the arrival of Byzantine sculptors and architects sent by the Byzantine Emperor

Justinian, suggest that the correct date for the construction is around 540 CE.[29] The 540 CE date suggests that the construction of the Taq-i Kisra, and perhaps Justinian's “help” was in response to the victory of Sasanian king Khosrau I over Antioch in 540 CE, which is depicted in the mosaics decorating the interior of the Taq-i Kisra.[29] The Taq-i Kisra was finally demolished for the most part by al-Mansur, who reused the bricks to build his own palace complex.[30]

Islamic iwans

The Taj Mahal in Agra, India (17th century), uses iwans for both entrances and decorative features.

Islamic art and architecture was also heavily influenced inspired by Roman, Byzantine, and Sasanian designs, both due to the presence of extant examples and contact between cultures. For example, the Great Mosque of Damascus was built in the early eighth century CE on the site of a Roman Christian church, and incorporates a nave-like element with a tall arcade and clerestory. The Sasanian Empire also had a tremendous impact on the development of Islamic architecture; however, there was some overlap between the Sasanians and the Muslims making it difficult at times to determine who was influencing whom.[31] Islamic art and architecture borrowed many Sasanian decorative motifs and architectural forms, including the iwan.

Iwans were used frequently in Islamic non-religious architecture before the twelfth century, including houses, community spaces, and civic structures such as the bridge of

Si-o-Se Pol in Isfahan.[32] Furthermore, Islamic architecture incorporated the Sasanian placement for the iwan by making it a grand entrance to the prayer hall or to a mosque tomb, and often placing it before a domed space.[33] The iwan became common in Islamic religious architecture from the twelfth century onward.[34][35]

Within the

Islamic world the iwan was especially important in the architecture of Central Asia and Greater Iran, but it was also adopted into the local architectural traditions of other regions. It was highly adaptable and it appears in a variety of contexts and in different configurations.[35] Iwans could be placed along the sides of the interior courtyards of buildings, as they were in many madrasas, or on the exterior of buildings, as at the Taj Mahal and other Mughal mausoleums.[19][34] Under the Ayyubids and Mamluks, who ruled Egypt and the Levantine region, it became a common feature of madrasa architecture, although in Cairo the vaulted iwans of earlier periods were replaced with flat-roofed iwans in the later Mamluk period.[36][37] Starting in the late 13th and 14th centuries, the word iwan in Mamluk Egypt itself seems to have been become more restricted, on the one hand, to secular architecture while, on the other hand, it was used in this context to denote large domed structures in addition to vaulted halls.[38] The celebrated monumental throne hall of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad was thus called the Great Iwan (al-Iwan al-Kabir) even though its main element was a domed hall, not a vaulted hall.[38]

Four-iwan plan

The courtyard of the Great Mosque of Isfahan, one of the earliest and most prominent uses of the four-iwan plan in mosque architecture, introduced in the early 12th century[39]

The four-iwan plan (cruciform) is one of the most characteristic floor plans of Islamic architecture,

cruciform madrasas, one of the iwans could be oriented towards the qibla (direction of prayer) and include a mihrab in order to serve as a prayer space.[41]

The history of the evolution of the standard four-iwan plan has been debated by scholars.[42][35] The four-iwan plan was already in use in palace and temple architecture during both the Parthian and Sasanian periods.[13][19] The earliest known appearance of the four-iwan plan in Islamic architecture is at the dār al-imāra (governor's palace) in Kufa, as rebuilt by the Umayyad governor Ziyād ibn Abīh in the late 7th century.[34] It only became common in mosque design in the twelfth century, long after the iwan's invention in the first century CE.[43] The first patrons to incorporate this layout into mosques were the Seljuks, with the first example probably being the Seljuk modifications to the Great Mosque of Isfahan in the early 12th century, though the layout also appears in other mosques in Iran built or renovated by the Seljuks around the same time.[44][39][35] André Godard attributes both the origin and spread of this design to the appearance of madrasas, which also began with the Seljuks, and he further argued that the layout was derived from the style of domestic architecture indigenous to Khorasan.[42][35] The details of Godard's origin theory have not all been accepted by other scholars,[45] but it is widely-attested that the four-iwan layout spread to other regions with the subsequent proliferation of madrasas across the Islamic world.[46][47][34] In some regions it also spread to other building types such as caravanserais and bimaristans.[42][34][40]

In the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods of Egypt and Syria the four-iwan plan was prominently used in the architecture of madrasas, with the most monumental example being the massive 14th-century

Madrasa-mosque of Sultan Hasan.[48][49][50] In some more distant regions, like the Maghreb, the four-iwan plan was not commonly adopted for mosque architecture,[34] but it most likely influenced the axial designs of local madrasas that began under Marinid and Hafsid rule.[51][52][34] In early Ottoman architecture, particularly as it developed in Bursa around the 14th century, the four-iwan plan was adapted in a pragmatic way for religious buildings. In these early Ottoman designs the central court is covered by a dome instead of being open to the sky and one of the four iwans is repurposed as the vestibule of the building.[34]

  • Çifte Minareli Medrese (13th century) in Erzurum, Turkey, a variation of the four-iwan plan in Anatolian Seljuk architecture
  • Four-iwan layout at the Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan (14th century) in Cairo, Egypt
    Four-iwan layout at the
    Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan
    (14th century) in Cairo, Egypt
  • Interior of the Green Mosque (14th century) in Bursa, Turkey, an example of the modified four-iwan plan in early Ottoman architecture

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Some scholars have claimed that the iwan developed not in Mesopotamia, but in Nisaea (the ancient Parthian capital) where it was a result of Greek workers living and working in Parthia. For more information on the Nisaea theory, see Curatola & Scarcia (2004), p. 57.
  2. ^ Although the Parthians have been credited with the invention of the first fully developed iwan, there have been claims that some iwan-like forms existed during the Seleucid period in Mesopotamia, namely at Dura Europos. F. E. Brown claimed that an iwan-type hall may have existed in the Temple of Zeus Megistos; however it has been contested. Many scholars believe that any iwans built at the Temple were likely later Parthian additions. Brown argued that the Temple of Zeus Megistos could have been modeled after the triple-iwan terraces at Masjid-I Solaiman or Bard-è Néchandeh, both of which archaeologist Roman Ghirshman claimed to date from the Achaemenid Persians; however, in later excavations Ghirshman discovered that both terraces did not in fact support iwan structures. Susan Downey argues that both the date and the western location make any early iwans at Dura Europos unlikely. Every other iwan from before the Sasanian period is found further east, such as at Hatra, Ashur, or Seleucia-on-the-Tigris. For more information on the claimed Seleucid iwans, see Downey (1988), pp. 78–85.

References

  1. ^ Wright (1992), p. 508
  2. ^ Boas (2010), p. 366
  3. ^ "Eyvan". azerdict.com (in Azerbaijani). Archived from the original on 5 May 2019. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
  4. ^ Dictionary of Islamic architecture: Pishtaq Archived 2011-06-29 at the Wayback Machine archnet.org.
  5. Britannica.com
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 9789004161214
    .
  7. ^ Northern Akkad Project Reports. University of Ghent. 1991. p. 78.
  8. ^ Grabar, Oleg (2011) [1987]. "AYVĀN". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 7 September 2022.
  9. ^ Sitwell (1957)
  10. ^ Keall (1974), pp. 129–130.
  11. ^ Keall (1974), p. 126
  12. ^ Doulas Harper, "Vault", last modified 2010, www.dictionary.com.
  13. ^ a b c Keall (1974), p. 124
  14. ^ Smith & Simpson (1998), pp. 18, 82
  15. ^ "Dictionary of Islamic architecture: Ivvan". archnet.org. Archived from the original on 29 June 2011.
  16. ^ Farrokh (2007), p. 173
  17. ^ Warren & Fethi (1982), p. 30
  18. ^ a b Downey (1988), p. 151
  19. ^ a b c Rawson, 46
  20. ^ Downey (1988), p. 152
  21. ^ Curatola & Scarcia (2004), pp. 56–61
  22. ^ Downey (1988), pp. 137–173
  23. ^ Curatola & Scarcia (2004), p. 92
  24. ^ Curatola & Scarcia (2004), pp. 94–104
  25. ^ Downey (1988), pp. 156–170
  26. ^ Curatola & Scarcia (2004), pp. 92–96
  27. ^ Reade (1999), pp. 185–186
  28. ^ Iran, Seven Faces of Civilization - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtcE37IIqfQ
  29. ^ a b Kurz (1941), pp. 38–40
  30. ^ Bier (1993), pp. 63–64
  31. ^ Bier (1993), pp. 58–61
  32. ^ Curatola & Scarcia (2004), pp. 129–135
  33. ^ Bier (1993), p. 57
  34. ^
    ISBN 9789004161658
    .
  35. ^
    ISBN 9780195309911
    .
  36. ^ Behrens-Abouseif 2007, p. 73-77.
  37. ^ Williams 2018, p. 30.
  38. ^
    JSTOR 4629449
    .
  39. ^
    ISBN 9783848003808
    .
  40. ^
    ISBN 9780195309911
    .
  41. ISBN 978-0-300-06465-0
    .
  42. ^ a b c Godard (1951)
  43. ^ Keall (1974), p. 123
  44. ^ Ettinghausen, Grabar & Jenkins-Madina 2001, p. 140-144.
  45. ISBN 9780195309911
    .
  46. ^ Bloom, Jonathan M.; Blair, Sheila S., eds. (2009). "Madrasa". The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. Oxford University Press.
  47. ^ Pedersen, J.; Makdisi, G.; Rahman, Munibur; Hillenbrand, R. (2012). "Madrasa". Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Brill.
  48. ^ Behrens-Abouseif 2007.
  49. ^ Williams 2018.
  50. ISBN 9780300064650
    .
  51. ^ Marçais 1954, p. 285, 293.
  52. ISBN 9780195309911
    .

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

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