Hasht Behesht Ave

Hasht Behesht Ave

Hasht Behesht

خیابان هشت بهشت

Unknown Persian architect

Eşfahān, Eşfahān, Iran

Eastern side of Hasht Behesht Palace

32°39'12.1"N 51°40'23.7"E

1669

17th century

Safavid (style)

Safavid dynasty (period)

Islamic

Iranian

Persian

boulevard

street

Architecture and City Planning

Hasht Behesht Ave

Isfahan

boulevard

green way

landscape

Safavid urban planning

general view

row of fountains, trees, and other plantings laid out in the median strip

Located in the center of the Garden of Nightingales (the Bagh-e Bulbul), the Hasht Behesht is one of Isfahan's two surviving Safavid pavilions. Built under Shah Sulaiman some twenty years after the Chihil Sutun, it is quite different in style from the earlier pavilion, although it exhibits the same concern for the interplay of interior and exterior spaces. 'Hasht Behesht' translates as 'Eight Paradises' and refers to a Timurid palace building type consisting of two stories of four corner rooms around a central domed space. In Isfahan, the corner rooms are octagonal, forming massive pillars that define four large openings leading to large porches in the south, east and west, and an iwan in the north. The vault of the central space is detailed with polychrome muqarnas and is capped with a lantern.

© Saif Haq

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Saif Haq