Sardar Mofakham Mansion

🕰️When was it built?

The mansion was built on the order of Yar Mohammad Khan Shadlu, known as Sardar Mofakham, under Naser al-Din Shah. At the time it stood in a large garden with the Mirror House, a pool house and other buildings. Its design is attributed to Mirza Mehdi Khan Shaqaqi, but this attribution is not certain.

🏛️What was it built for?

This was both the home of the Sardar's family and a place for receiving government guests. The mansion has two floors, thirty-four rooms and two large halls. It was later given over to a hospital for a time, and after it was handed to the cultural heritage office and restored, it became a museum of archaeology and anthropology.

👀What you will see

• The columns of the ground-floor iwan are octagonal and thick, while the upper-floor columns are round and covered with tiles on the south front.
• On either side of the great arch of the south front, two winged angels are set among vines and plant designs.
• Above the central arch, in the triangular part of the front, a lion and sun in yellow appear on haft-rang tiles.
• The tile design of each column and of the frames above the arches is different; look at the decoration piece by piece to see the differences.
• Twenty-one wooden doors open from the rooms onto the iwans, and stucco work can be seen on different parts of the floors.

💡Something interesting

The original roof was built with juniper beams and a clay covering, but a fire in 1937 destroyed it. A pitched roof of galvanised sheet replaced the old covering after that fire; the roofline is a reminder of a major change in the mansion's life.