Geometry at work: Re-reading the Persian bazaar

Abstract

The paper focuses on three issues concerning the Persian bazaar12 A BRIEF INTRODUCTION ON THE GRAND BAZAAR OF ISFAHAN : (1) considering the bazaar as an interiorized urban environment; (2) the way the bazaar achieves this interiority while obtaining such a large scale and; (3) how this interiority affects the experience of the bazaar. The subject of the Persian bazaar first came to my attention through research I conducted during the first year of my studies at the Staedelschule Architecture Class. During this year I discovered the main elements of this Persian archetype and analyzed the underlying geometrical principles that gave rise to them while focusing on specific examples. The second motivation that led to this subject was the current body of texts on the Persian bazaar. Almost all of the texts that have been published on this subject are merely descriptive and historical; this paper attempts to offer a more subjective reading of the bazaar in the hope of not just raising awareness of the subject but also opening up new possibilities for its interpretation. It has been tried to keep the main focus on answering questions of "what" and "how" instead of "why". Architectural elements have been analyzed cut off from their symbolic meanings and/or their religious attributes in order to consider them as elements with the capacity to produce purely spatial architectural effects. Despite the fact that there are strong connections between the material form of the bazaar and the climate, religion and culture of its surroundings, these issues have not been taken into account for such subjects stretch far beyond the scope of this paper. The grand bazaar of Isfahan was chosen as a reference example. The main reason for this choice was the location of the bazaar, its accessibility, and the availability of materials related to it. Due to the scarce references that offer a more in depth study of the bazaar, the personal documentation and experience of the bazaar of Isfahan, through film and photography came to be of great help.