The decoration a muqarnas

The decorative solution a muqarnas it is one of the important ornamental elements of architecture that is used to embellish Iranian buildings, especially mosques and mausoleums. The muqarnas they are very similar to the bee's nest.

In buildings with overlapping floors they are used to decorate buildings or to gradually transform them from one geometric shape to another. These can be considered among the useful tools to build the domes that later lost their initial use and are mostly used for ornamental purposes.

Observing the natural forms of the ice and calcium stalactites inside the caves of Iran, we find that most probably the first artists of this technique had their artistic inspiration from them and realized it exactly in the internal and external facades. of buildings using brick, stucco or cement.

Le muqarnas they are usually created in the concave surfaces of the corners under the ceiling but the place where the decorative element is placed can be on the walls, ceilings, corners, portals etc.

They have influenced the other decorative arts and craftsmanship and led to the formation and dissemination of types of art such as carpet weaving, tiling, working with stucco etc. Also the existence of very remarkable drawings of the muqarnas in the portals, inside the domes, inside the Shabestan (colonnaded halls covered with a mosque) ei mihrab (niches) has led to the ever widening diffusion of the art of tiling and following the construction of the menbar (pulpits) and wooden columns inside the mosques and beautiful wooden inlays inspired by the various forms of the muqarnas they were imprinted on those. Unparalleled examples of this type of woodwork can be observed in the mosques of the period of the Safavid kingdom at Marāgheh, Banāb, Tabriz and Khuy.

Le muqarnas from the point of view of the form there are four types:

protruding: they are muqarnas whose material is the same of the building and with absolute simplicity and without any kind of ornament with brick or stucco adorn the terminal part of the surfaces of the external façade of the building whose solidity is strong.

overlapping: omitting the materials used mainly in the building, the stucco, the brick and the stone, are used in the internal and external surfaces of the building and are often arranged in a row in overlapping orders of two to five or more and have a medium stability.

suspended: they are similar to limestone prisms pendulous in caves that are generally called stalactites and are often created by combining different materials such as: stucco, ceramics, tiles etc .. to the concave internal surfaces of the building, seem suspended and have little stability.

honeycomb: they are similar to the honeycomb and overall are small hives arranged on each other, this type from the point of view of the shape is apparently similar to the muqarnas He suspended.