Ilkhanid Architecture: Materials, Labour and Building Patronage

From Hulegu’s conquest in the mid-thirteenth century to the end of the Ilkhanid state in 1335, rulers and officials sponsored buildings across Iran, Iraq and connected territories. Their projects included palaces, observatories, mosques, schools, tombs, hospitals and caravanserais. They drew on earlier Iranian and Islamic building traditions while serving the needs of a court that still made use of mobile camps as well as permanent urban centres. Ilkhanid architecture was not a single uniform style: climate, building purpose, patronage and local practice shaped individual projects.

Royal and ministerial commissions combined construction with continuing support for staff, supplies and maintenance. Bricklayers, tile makers, stucco carvers and designers supplied different skills. A palace required audience rooms and residential space, while a religious foundation could bring teaching, worship, food and care into neighbouring buildings.

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From mobile court to planned urban centres

Ilkhanid rulers retained elaborate tents for countryside residences, and temporary tent structures could also serve as mosques or other facilities. Such buildings were fragile and have not survived. At the same time, the rulers commissioned permanent projects and urban expansion, particularly in Azerbaijan, including at Maragha, Tabriz and Soltaniyeh. The contrast between mobile court life and lasting construction was not absolute: both forms served a court whose activities extended beyond any one city.

Hulegu supported the observatory founded at Maragha in 1259 under Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. Its buildings and instruments served astronomical observation, calculation and teaching. The engineer al-Urdi designed instruments and helped establish the facility, linking specialist equipment with the architecture that housed it.

Soltaniyeh illustrates the ambitions and resources behind urban development. Arghun initiated its foundation, and his son Uljaytu developed it as a new capital. Large groups of artists, craftspeople and merchants were brought to the city. The court’s building programme relied on royal resources and the involvement of powerful officials. In Tabriz, the vizier Rashid al-Din commissioned a district that included a mosque, a madrasa, a hospital and other services. These projects show how urban patronage could combine monumental construction with buildings intended for religious, educational and charitable use.

Patrons, workers and resources

Rulers and ministers sponsored separate projects. Rashid al-Din’s Rab’-e Rashidi in Tabriz combined worship, education, care and residence under an endowment. Regional dynasties continued building after 1335, including the Jalayirids and Muzaffarids. Their commissions developed related forms under different political patrons.

Named commissions and the movement of craftspeople provide glimpses of the human effort involved. The relocation of artists and craftspeople to Soltaniyeh indicates that ambitious urban projects required skilled workers to be gathered in one place. The finished buildings also depended on specialists in brick construction, stucco carving, tile production and decorative design. At Takht-e Soleyman, excavated tiles, stucco fragments and a design plate for a vaulted ceiling preserve evidence of this skilled work.

Large complexes could bring several functions together. A mosque or school might stand alongside a hospital, housing or other services, as in Rashid al-Din’s Tabriz district and the complex planned around Uljaytu’s mausoleum at Soltaniyeh. Such buildings served urban communities as well as their patrons. They also gave rulers and officials a lasting presence in the city through institutions used for worship, learning, care and commemoration.

Brick, vaults and decorated interiors

Brick remained the principal building material, while stucco, tile and carved stone supplied durable and often highly elaborate finishes. Ilkhanid builders also developed the organization of interior space. Taller rooms, arches opened through walls and the use of transverse vaults helped create interiors that were more spacious and allowed more light and air to enter.

At Soltaniyeh, Öljaitü’s early fourteenth-century mausoleum rises on an octagonal brick structure with galleries. An inner and an outer dome shell allow different interior and exterior profiles, connected within the structure. The monument reaches roughly 50 metres in height. Its turquoise exterior, brickwork and decorated interiors made it a conspicuous centre of dynastic commemoration.

Builders and decorators also used muqarnas, a system of tiered, niche-like forms, on a larger scale than simply covering the transition between a square room and a dome. At the Tomb of ‘Abd al-Samad in Natanz, dated 1307 to 1308, an elaborate stucco muqarnas dome hangs beneath the building’s pyramidal roof. At Takht-e Soleyman, a stucco plate excavated from the southern octagonal chamber behind the west iwan bears part of a geometric design for a muqarnas vault. It connects a decorative feature with the planning and technical knowledge needed to construct it.

Colourful tilework and carved stucco gave buildings another layer of distinction. Tile mosaic was made by cutting tiles of different colours into smaller pieces and assembling them into larger patterns, often geometric or floral. At the Friday Mosque of Isfahan, a mihrab, the niche marking the direction of prayer, was added in 1310. Its deeply carved vegetal decoration and inscription demonstrate the precision possible in stucco work. Carved stucco also survives at the Mausoleum of Pir-i Bakran near Isfahan.

Palaces and civic buildings

Takht-e Soleyman in northwestern Iran is a rare surviving example of an Ilkhanid palace. Abaqa established a summer palace there over the remains of a Sasanian sanctuary and palace; his son Arghun later completed the complex. The earlier site shaped the new building’s location and layout. Its enclosure contained a large courtyard, a central pool, galleries and four iwans, vaulted halls open on one side. A domed audience hall stood behind the north iwan, at the location of the former sanctuary. Rooms behind the west iwan served as a throne room and, later, a residence for the ruler.

Takht-e Soleyman combined court residence with audiences, administration and ceremonies. Its decoration included painted stucco and glazed tiles. Lajvardina tiles used coloured decoration and gold leaf over an already glazed surface, followed by a further firing. Dragons and phoenixes drew on East Asian forms, while imagery from the Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings, evoked Iran’s legendary rulers.

Caravanserais provided places for travellers and merchants to lodge or conduct business. Baghdad’s Khan al-Mirjan, dated 1359, belongs to the later Jalayirid period. Its large roofed hall used transverse arches and vaulting to span the interior. It illustrates the continuation of regional building techniques after unified Ilkhanid rule.

Mosques, schools and religious communities

Ilkhanid mosques were built or expanded in different regions. Many congregational mosques used a four- iwan plan, with halls arranged around a courtyard. At the Friday Mosques of Varamin and Kerman, the iwan on the qibla side, the direction faced during prayer, led to a domed prayer hall. In the colder northwest, an open courtyard was less suitable; the Friday Mosque of Ardabil, now ruined, followed a different arrangement.

A madrasa supported religious learning, while a khanqah provided for a Sufi community’s residence and activities. Patrons also built or renovated shrines and tombs associated with religious teachers, including Bayazid Bastami and ‘Abd al-Samad. Endowments could pay for staff and services around these buildings, turning a construction project into a continuing institution.

Tombs and patronage beyond 1335

Ruler’s tombs made commemoration part of the urban landscape. Ghazan’s mausoleum in Tabriz was an early Ilkhanid Muslim ruler’s tomb. Uljaytu’s mausoleum at Soltaniyeh, with its great brick dome and galleries, was a more expansive project, set within a complex that joined commemoration to religious and charitable buildings.

Ilkhanid political rule ended in 1335, but regional patrons continued to commission buildings. The Madrasa al-Imami in Isfahan, dated 1354, was built under post-Ilkhanid patronage. It nevertheless illustrates the continuation of architectural forms used for religious schools. The buildings of the Ilkhanid era thus reflect both the particular ambitions of its rulers and officials and a wider building tradition that continued under later patrons.

For the wider setting, see The Ilkhanate: Mongol Rule, Government and Society in Iran.