Vakil Ab Anbar (Shiraz Water Museum)

🕰️When was it built?

Karim Khan Zand built this cistern around 1180 AH (1766), at the same time as the Vakil Mosque. Karim Khan's cisterns were built in several parts of the city, and their design follows Safavid architecture.

🏛️What was it built for?

Water was stored in the tank, and the stairway gave access to it. The windcatcher was used to ventilate and cool the cistern. In modern times the building was prepared for cultural activities, and in 2016 the Water Museum Gallery opened in it.

👀What you will see

• A stone stairway leads down to the water-storage part of this historic structure.
• The cistern's tank is rectangular, unlike the round, domed tanks of many cisterns in Fars.
• The building is roofed with vaults, and you can look at the shape of the roof apart from the square plan of the tank.
• The windcatchers of Karim Khan's complex are built of brick, with diamond patterns at their openings.

💡Something interesting

The opening exhibition of the Water Museum Gallery showed works by artists such as Manouchehr Motabar, Bahram Dabiri and Ebrahim Haghighi in this historic building. The change of use came after the cistern's old role in the city's water supply had ended.

🎒Good to know before you go

• Look at the windcatcher openings at the top of the building; their brick decoration differs from the vaulted roof inside.