Yazd: Gem of Desert

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People of Yazd are the most particular about their traditions and customs in all over the plateau of Iran. Here there are not Turks, Arabs, nomads, real palaces (only exception) or greens pastures. This  is the city of the plaster of clay and  straw domes, wind towers, ab-anbar (cisterne for water) and the caravanserrai,and also the city of walls and the oasis, of Zoroastrian dakhme (the towers of Hush) and the nakhl city. (wood structures that is only used in Yazd  in the month of the Moharram for the mourning traditions.

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From the first moment Yazd seems to have nothing interesting. Particularly dusty and torrid plain and dry climate which are the most disagreeable of all over the plateau. This is little vegetation. The surrounding mountains have no vegetation and are completely made for soil. It doesn’t have any natural beauty or a great history. Yazd has never been destroyed by Mongols; never been disputed over to be conquered by the dynasties.

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Yazd is not a city of palaces and the houses of rich and poor people together; the people of this city were all the same from the point of hierarchy and finance. There was not any powerful and rich person who support, protect and develop the city. It hasn’t had a green and good natural atmosphere. There were just ordinary people who have built the city and kept it alive till now. Because of its position in the center of the plateau of Iran, it has typically preserved more Persian characteristics.

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People of Kerman and Yazd have the most Zoroastrians compared to all over of Iran. From the total of 60000 Zoroastrian people in Iran, Yazd has 7000 Zoroastrian inhabitants. The spiral roads are the most clean and colorful than anywhere else; the walls around the city are well preserved. The color of main gate is different from of the walls and more attractive. The spiral roads in the city are more beautiful than the other roads .Yazd, if not just the native land, sure one good reservoir of bad-ghir, (wind towers), invented typically by Persians (simple and effective like qanat) that come across in the entire Persian desert Badgirs (tower winds) are like chimneys in Europe which are constructed in the center of the room. This room is built under the level of the ground or isolated from the other parts of the house to stay cooler than any place there. Bagir collects every breeze, combined it with water make the weather in zir zamin always fresh.

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Architectonic it inspires to you without average terms to the gotico style, or rather to the reworks of the gotic that we find in the veneziani palaces. Many of these towers, with their long and tightened openings rifinite with arch from the delicate curves and frastagliate they would not be outside place on the Large Canal. Like the interpretation of Pier Paul Pasolini who says: architecture in Yazd and Venice is just different from the materials, Venice was built on the water and Yazd on the soil. If there wasn’t water in the Earth, we wouldn’t have Venice and if there was not soil, we wouldn’t have Yazd.

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Water, Earth, Wind and Fire, are the four elements used in traditional architecture of the desert for more than thousands of years. 

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Water: In the plateau of Iran is the sacred and vital natural material that is used in architecture, urban, oasis which is preserved in underground channels called the Qanat (equivalents to the small Roman waterfalls, spreading nearly 200,000  Km in all over of Iran). streams and small waterfalls in the famous hanging gardens fills the aria with peace, relaxation and freshness.

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Soil: what we have found from archeological excavations, shows that the main material used in building in Yazd is soil. Soil can be formed so easily, so they could build cupolas, uneven surfaces, niches, and so many other things,and as its is inexhaustible and  in desert , they  could built long lasting buildings there like the Citadel of Bam which is going back to 2000 years ago which . You see it gives life to the desert.

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Wind: Another natural element, intelligent man has created the Bad-gir or wind towers, with which they can capture more weather.Weather combined with water succeeds to send fresh air waves in all the angles of the house.

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Fire: Element that purifies, and is sacred in Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrian put it over alter and kept it alive for centuries, its also used for baking of bricks and mosaic which are always used in Islamic architecture.

All these elements have been joined together with a perfect harmony and created human space in Yazd.

The monuments like Friday Mosque in Yazd, the sanctuary of Davazdah Imam, ilVakt-u-Saat, the mosque of Amir Chakhmaq and the mausoleum of Shams-uddin are very popular and the best ones in Iran. The walls of the city, left from Timur, are magnificent and better conserved. The mosque of the Friday, founded in XII but was finished at the end of XIV, is the most beautiful and has been conserved from that period. It has a remarkable construction with an original design and a particular decoration. The main court is long, with twelve simple arches in every side, dominated to south-east of Ivan from the sanctuary and the south-west from the immense portal entrance.

The entrance gate of the mosque was built with an Ivan. This gate is like a filter between outside and inside of the mosque .One of the architectural characteristics of the mosque, its high arc, came back to pre-Islamic, the period of the Sassanian (Partians).They started to build those minarets in 14th century and finished the building in 16th century AD. This mosque, with its minarets which are larger and higher than any other minarets in Iran, is the most beautiful building in Yazd.