IRTSNirtsn.com — what Iran has made, and the engineering underneath it

A tunnel, a knot, a vault, a tiled field, a walled plan — and the water that runs under all of them.

Index — six sections, twenty-four entries
Inside a qanat tunnel, water running along the floor toward the daylight end
Inside the bore: barely wider than the digger, and running with the water it was cut to carry.Photo: QanatFiraun · Wikimedia Commons

Water · Entry 01

Water walked out of the mountain, and a town grew where it surfaced

A tunnel driven uphill from the far end, dug in the dark from a line of vertical shafts, moving water tens of kilometres without a pump and losing almost none of it.

Three rooms, one climate problem

Shade, mass and moving air — at the loom, under the vault and on the tile face.

A weaver's hands at the knots, the pattern standing above themThe vaulted brick run of a covered bazaar, light dropping through roof openingsA tilesetter cutting a piece to fit a geometric field
Left: the working row on a vertical loom, the finished pattern standing above the weaver's hands. Centre: light dropped through the roof openings of a covered run, which vent hot air as well. Right: a tilesetter cutting a piece to fit a geometric field.Photo: Tahir Xəlfəquliyev / Pexels · Photo: Roof of the qom grand bazaar, qom, iran · Wikimedia Commons · Photo: Moussa Idrissi / Pexels

Carpet

The knot

Symmetrical against asymmetrical knotting, what each does to the pile, and why knot density is a poorer measure of quality than people assume.

Bazaar

Rasteh

The trade street: one craft to a run, so the noisy and the smelling sat apart from the fine work, and the whole thing was legible without a sign.

Tile

Cut mosaic

Each colour fired separately then cut and set face-down into plaster — slower, sharper and far more expensive than painting the whole panel.

Supported by

Institutions and initiatives whose work in built heritage, material craft, and living landscape runs through the same terrain ours does.

How a qanat works, in one section

The mother well is sunk into the aquifer under the foothills and fixes the level. The tunnel is then driven back towards the settlement at one in a thousand to one in fifteen hundred — shallow enough not to scour the floor, steep enough not to silt. Read the entry.

MOTHER WELL SHAFT OUTLET TENS OF KILOMETRES, FALLING ONE METRE IN A THOUSAND

Dug uphill from the settlement end, so water met at the face runs out behind the digger instead of filling it.

Shafts every fifty to a hundred metres take out spoil, bring in air and give access for clearing.

The ring of spoil around each shaft head is the only part of the system that shows from above.

Six sections

Where the lines run

Eight places carry the examples in this register — the qanat field at Gonabad, the ice house at Meybod, the wind-catchers of Yazd, the bazaar at Tabriz. Each pin opens its entry.

GonabadGonabadMeybodMeybodYazdYazdKashanKashanIsfahanIsfahanTabrizTabrizShirazShirazKermanKerman
  1. 1GonabadThe qanat · Water
  2. 2MeybodYakhchāl · Water
  3. 3YazdThe badgir · Earth
  4. 4KashanThe fourfold plan · Garden
  5. 5IsfahanCut mosaic · Tile
  6. 6TabrizRasteh · Bazaar
  7. 7ShirazPlanting · Garden
  8. 8KermanAb anbar · Water
Places named in the entries, drawn from the survey geometry supplied with this build.

Also supporting

The remaining six, listed as names only — the same tile, the same weight, no logos.

Eight from the register

All twenty-four entries
01WaterThe qanatA tunnel driven uphill from the far end, dug in the dark from a line of vertical shafts, moving water tens of kilometres without a pump and losing almost none of it. 03WaterYakhchālAn ice house that made ice in a desert, using a shaded pool, a thick tapering wall and radiative cooling on clear nights. 05CarpetThe knotSymmetrical against asymmetrical knotting, what each does to the pile, and why knot density is a poorer measure of quality than people assume. 09BazaarRastehThe trade street: one craft to a run, so the noisy and the smelling sat apart from the fine work, and the whole thing was legible without a sign. 13TileGirihStrapwork built from a small set of repeating figures, laid out with compass and straightedge, generating patterns that never quite close. 17GardenThe fourfold planTwo crossing channels quartering a walled rectangle — a plan that is a water distribution diagram before it is an aesthetic. 22EarthThe badgirThe wind-catcher as a pressure device — catching breeze on one face, dumping warm air out the other, and working even on a still day. 24EarthDomes and squinchesHow a round dome gets carried on a square room, and why the squinch preceded the pendentive here.

Written about craft, building and landscape. Every practice is named to the region it belongs to.