Khanah-i 'Attar-ha

Khanah-i 'Attar-ha is a historic mansion in the city of Kashan, Iran. It dates to the nineteenth century.The home is arranged around three sides of a large, nearly-square courtyard with a rectangular pool and four smaller rectangular garden plots. The entrance to the house is on its south side near its east end. The entrance leads through a corridor that gives onto the central courtyard in its southeastern corner. Just before emerging onto the courtyard, a second corridor leads through an octagonal vestibule onto the houses eastern quadrant, which contains its primary reception area.The aforementioned reception area opens onto the east side of the court. It consists of a large sitting room flanked on both sides by smaller rooms. The large room opens via four doors and a large three-part window onto a balcony overlooking the courtyard. The rooms flanking this main sitting area also open onto small balconies (two doors each). Below these rooms is a sardab accessed by a flight of stairs that descends from the courtyard below the main sitting room's balcony. This level also consists of a large reception room flanked by two smaller rooms.The south side of the courtyard is occupied by an assemblage centered on a room with a pool (hawz-khanah). Preceding this domed space is a porch with three arched bays communicating with the courtyard. Flanking the porch and pool room are two corridors and then on either end, two rooms overlooking the courtyard through three windows. The north side of the courtyard has a central sitting room flanked by two smaller rooms.Sources: Ḥājjī-Qāsimī, Kāmbīz, ed. Ganjnāmah-i farhang-i ās̲ār-i miʻmārī-i Islāmī-i Īrān, vol. 1, 132-139 (English text: 30-37). 18 vols. Tehran: Dānishgāh-i Shahīd Bihishtī, 1996.