Niavaran Palace

🕰️When was it built?

The garden was laid out under Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, and later shahs added more buildings. Work on today's main palace, designed by Mohsen Foroughi, began in 1958 and was finished in 1967. The palace became a museum in 1986.

🏛️What was it built for?

The new palace was first meant for receiving foreign guests, but during construction it was decided that it would be the home of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family. So besides formal halls, it has living rooms, a private cinema and workspaces.

👀What you will see

• The main palace has a retractable aluminium roof, and inside it is decorated with stucco, mirror work and tiles.
• The rooms are arranged around a large hall and hold Persian carpets, paintings and decorative pieces.
• The Ahmad Shahi Pavilion in the garden is a two-storey late Qajar building with patterned brickwork and a pitched roof.
• Naser al-Din Shah built the Sahebqaraniyeh Palace; its ground floor is a pool room and its upper floor later became the Shah's office.
• The inscriptions garden museum shows 43 copies made from historic inscriptions; they are not the original stones.

💡Something interesting

The Qajar garden was made where a reed bed once grew, and the name Ney-avaran was used for it, which later became Niavaran. So the name is older than the Pahlavi palace and still recalls the garden that came before it.

🎒Good to know before you go