Chihil Sutun Palace, Isfahan, Iran, 1647 (photo: Zenith210, CC BY-SA 3.0)
In 1647, the Chihil Sutun Palace (Forty Pillared Palace) was built in the middle of a royal garden in the Safavid Palace precinct of Isfahan. It is a linear design with a pillared porch, two side rooms, an audience hall and picture gallery, four small chambers, and secondary flanking porches. As the main ceremonial palace of the Safavids—with its elegant talar (a porch usually supported by columns or pillars), dazzling decorations, and historical mural paintings—Chihil Sutun left a lasting impact on Iranian royal architecture.
Pillared porches are familiar architectural elements in the history of architecture across the globe, providing a threshold between indoors/outdoors, private/public, dark/light, and more. This essay introduces a specific type called talar from the Islamic world and its unique form and meaning for the Safavid Empire in the 17th century. Among the three early modern Muslim empires—the Mughal, Ottoman, and Safavid—the latter was known for crafting a unique imperial and Shi’i identity through art and architecture in Iran. Chihil Sutun Palace is a quintessential architectural example of the Safavids’ Perso-Shi’i identity, integrating the doctrines of Shi’i Islam, Persian kingship, and Sufism as a unique political ideology.
The Safavid Empire and neighboring empires (underlying map © Google)
Isfahan: capital city of the Safavids
Although Shah Ismail, the founder of the Safavid Empire, proclaimed Shi’ism as the nation’s official religion in the early 16th century, the full-fledged architectural representation of the Safavids’ religious and political perspective was formulated later in the century under Shah Abbas I. His multifaceted program for the urban and economic development of the empire began with the shift of the capital from Qazvin to Isfahan in the 1590s, moving south to ensure the security of the court in the face of Ottoman threats. Through a substantial and grandiose architectural campaign, he turned Isfahan into a microcosm of Safavid rule at the heart of Iran.
Aerial view of the daulatkhane (palace district) in Isfahan (underlying map © Google)
Shah Abbas I’s grand scheme consisted of two major urban elements: Maidan-e Naqsh-e Jahan, a vast and spacious public square outlined with arched walls containing shops and chambers interspersed with four major buildings (The Royal Mosque, Shaykh Lotfullah Mosque, the Qaysariyye Bazaar gate, and the Ali Qapu Palace); and Chaharbagh Avenue, a tree-lined promenade with gardens and shops. Palaces for imperial audiences, including the Chihil Sutun Palace, and royal residential buildings were placed between these two major urban spaces. The Ali Qapu Palace (Sublime Door), placed at the edge of the Maidan-e Naqsh-e Jahan (Image of the World Square), provided an entrance to the palace precinct.
Plan and section, Pavillon of Eight Paradises (Hasht Behesht) from Pascal-Xavier Coste, Modern monuments of Persia, volume 1 (Paris: A. Morel, 1867), plate 37
Development of a new palace type: talars
Following Shah Abbas I’s efforts to transform Isfahan into an earthly paradise, newly established royal palaces, gardens, and mansions were designed to populate Isfahan. Previously, Safavid palaces had mostly followed the traditional hasht behesht (eight paradises) layout, a centralized design on a polygonal base, commonly an octagon, with an arrangement of two-storied rooms around a domed chamber.
However, efforts to move away from the traditional forms of palace design were underway by the end of Shah Abbas I’s reign. Between 1629 and 1666, under Shah Safi and Shah Abbas II’s rule, the talar was developed as a suitable spatial form for the Safavids’ ceremonial practices (including public audiences, Nowruz (Persian New Year) festivities, and Shi’i mourning practices). [1]
The talar type followed a linear scheme along a main axis. The palace was divided into three sections: a talar or a pillared porch in front (open on three sides); a shahneshin (throne room) or an eyvan (arched porch, open on one side) area in the middle; and a covered audience hall with surrounding rooms in the end. The linear transition began from the public and semi-closed area of the talar to the private and covered hall of the palace at the end of the axis. It should be noted that in primary Persian sources, the term talar was used interchangeably either for the pillared porch itself or the whole palace.
As the theatricality of the ceremonials in the Safavid court increased, the spatial hierarchy representing the politics of proximity and distance became a matter of concern in palace design. The rank of the people in the audience defined their location in the talar, which occupies more than one-third of the palace area. The higher the rank, the closer they would sit to the eyvan. The eyvan was the focal point of the talar framing the seated king. People placed closer to this eyvan enjoyed higher authority in the Safavid court. Increasing the elevation of each section moving inward in the building also added to the diaphragmatic effect and linear progression of spatial hierarchy in this type of palace.
Chihil Sutun Palace façade from from Pascal-Xavier Coste, Modern monuments of Persia, volume 1 (Paris: A. Morel, 1867), plate 43
Exemplifying this new design scheme, the Chihil Sutun Palace was constructed as the largest and most significant palace in daulatkhane (palace district) under the patronage of Shah Abbas II. It was located in a walled garden marked with a gateway structure, a large rectangular pool in front of the palace, and additional water features in the talar.
Each column was originally inlaid with painted glass and mirror work. Talar, Chihil Sutun Palace (photo: youngrobv, CC BY-NC 2.0)
In Chihil Sutun’s talar, 20 slender wooden columns bear the flat wooden ceiling sheathed with painted wooden coffers and mirror work (a technique of decorating the walls with mirror panels or small geometric pieces of mirror or painted glass). Originally, the columns were covered with painted glass and mirror work, blending with the extensive mirror work of the talar and eyvan. Additionally, the reflecting pool right in front of the talar mirrors the image of the columns in the water, creating an illusion of forty columns in the façade of the palace, known as the Forty Column Palace.
Shahneshin, mirrored throne recess, Chihil Sutun Palace (photo: Sergio & Gabriella, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
One could imagine the dazzling and mesmerizing effect of this juxtaposition to magnify the reflected sunlight from the talar’s mirrorwork and the standing water of the pool. This indeed would heighten the experiential grandeur of the palace, where the Persian king appears in public. Behind the talar, a spacious eyvan in the shahneshin area functions as a threshold providing a transitional space between the talar and the rectangular triple-vaulted audience hall. This hall is in turn surrounded by side porches and four private rooms at its corners.
Reception given by Tahmasp I in honor of Indian prince Homayun who fled to Iran in 1543, tempera on plaster, Chihil Sutun Palace (photo: Debraj Ghosh, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Wall paintings at Chihil Sutun
The Chihil Sutun Palace is also remarkable for its well-preserved wall paintings and decorative program. Walls, niches, squinches, and ceilings are clad with various decorative techniques such as mural paintings, gilding, mirror work, and woodwork. Wall paintings consist of floral and figural renderings in bright colors, including historical and narrative episodes, literary themes, leisurely gatherings, and garden scenes. The six large paintings in the audience hall represent three battle scenes between the Safavids and neighboring empires (Ottomans, Uzbeks, and Mughals). The other three render the hospitality and conviviality of the Safavid kings while receiving a prince from the eastern neighboring empires (Uzbeks and Mughals) given refuge in the Safavid court.
The purpose of this series of narrative paintings, scholars argue, is to commemorate the important achievements of the Safavids in battles in light of Qandahar’s reconquest in 1649 and to remind the neighboring empires of the Safavids’ power and status in international politics and king-making. In addition to the representation of emperors and kings, images of European ambassadors and artists, local Christians such as Armenians, and unidentified figures of men and women, individually or in groups, adorn this magnificent Safavid palace. This diversity in figural representation refers to the diverse communities living in cosmopolitan Isfahan. [2]
The origin of talar design and its diverse forms in the Persianate world
Scholars believe the Safavids’ inspiration for appropriating pillared halls in the form of talars, a form foreign to the Isfahan region, comes from two distinct sources: first, the wooden pillared porches of Mazandaran’s vernacular architecture as a place of entertainment and viewing the surrounding landscape; second, the ancient Achaemenid pillared halls in Persepolis, a testimony to the legitimacy of the Safavid Empire as the rightful heir to the Persian kingship and the farr (sacred right to rule). [3]
Photograph of the Diwan-i-Khas, Delhi, India, taken c. 1895–1915 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
The interest in ancient Persian kingship was not unique to the Safavid Empire. Their powerful rival to the east, the Mughal Empire, also invested in appropriating such an idea through art and architecture. The ambitious Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, ordered the erection of wooden pillared halls (talars, sometimes called chihil sutun) in the early 17th century. Although these early examples of Mughal chihil sutun, known as Diwan-e ‘Am o Khass (Public Audience Hall), resembled Safavid talar palaces in Isfahan, rather than referring to a direct influence, they highlight the shared interest in the image of Persian kingship and the Achaemenid pillared halls in their conceptions.
Luckily, the Chihil Sutun Palace survived the civil turmoil and destruction in the aftermath of the Safavid fall in 1722. In addition to a 1706 renovation of the talar area, followed by a fire in the late 19th century, walls and columns in the palace were covered with plaster under the decree of Isfahan’s governor, Qajar Prince Zill al-Sultan. Today, after several phases of restoration and preservation, the palace remains a testimony to the glory of Safavid royal art and architecture.
While loggias and pillared porches have long been used in the Persianate world, the unique appropriation of the talar form in 17th-century Safavid palaces had a distinct function and meaning. The spatial hierarchy and openness that the pillared halls, such as the Chihil Sutun Palace, provided enhanced the theatricality and conviviality of the Safavid ceremonials. The talar adequately accommodated the Safavid Perso-Shi’i ideology that favored a charismatic, visible, convivial, and hierarchical ruling system. As the unique emergence of talars is associated with the public visibility and presence of Safavid kings in the 17th century, the return to the hasht behesht plan and the fading away of talar palaces in the later Safavid period has been interpreted as symptomatic of the later Safavid kings’ seclusion and remoteness. While there is value to this argument, this phenomenon needs further investigation, as the later Safavid architecture remains an understudied subject.
