iwan ایوان

This giant vaulted room has three walls, and the courtyard sky for a fourth.

It's called an iwan: a barrel-vaulted hall framed by a towering gateway called a pishtaq.

The high arch blocks the desert sun, trapping a deep pocket of cool shade that draws in the courtyard breeze.

Set facing each other across a four-iwan courtyard, the south iwan stays shaded in summer while the north iwan catches low winter sun.

Born in Parthian and Sassanian Persia, it became the signature of great mosques and madrasas from Isfahan to Samarkand.

Its cousins: the loggia in Italy, the liwan in the Levant, and the columned talar in Iran.

Iwan. A vaulted hall walled on three sides and open to the courtyard on the fourth.