Mud Designs on Potan Architecture
Without doubt, architecture throughout the ages has been a stage for the presence of various arts—tilework, wood carving, brickwork, plasterwork, and more. The walls of buildings, as the most accessible physical elements, serve through their motifs and ornamentations as a reflection of the thoughts of past generations. Perhaps unconsciously, whenever ornament is mentioned, grand and aristocratic buildings come to mind. It is evident that the wealth of property owners has influenced the type and extent of a building's decoration; nevertheless, ornamentation—as one of the quality-giving elements of interior and exterior spaces—can be observed to varying degrees even in the smallest rural residential units. The village of Potan in the Sarbaz district of Baluchestan bears witness to this claim. In Baluchestan, the authenticity, number, and rich variety of villages—each of which has employed local materials in construction from foundations to ornament—furnishes numerous examples attesting to the villagers' attention to architectural decoration even within the modest scope of rural architecture. Yet from among the historic villages of Baluchestan, the author selected Potan for study on account of its valuable mud-brick ornamentation and carved wooden openings. Despite the abundance of historic structures in the rural settlements of Baluchestan, scarcely any art-historical or archaeological research has been conducted on them. The remoteness and relative inaccessibility of these sites may be counted among the reasons for this deficiency. Owing to its particular geographical and geopolitical position, Baluchestan has seen little change over the centuries, and thus traditional arts—such as pottery, embroidery, mat-weaving, kilim-weaving, and music, rooted in the beliefs and culture of the region's ancient inhabitants—have largely preserved their authenticity and remained untouched. One therefore cannot overlook the relationship and resemblance between the motifs of Baluch embroidery—the most prevalent handicraft of the Baluch people—and other motifs and ornamental patterns found in pottery, carpets, and the ancient mud-brick decorations of Baluchestan. According to the political divisions of 2011, the village of Potan is situated in the Parud rural district, Parud section, of the Sarbaz county. The village lies in a mountainous area and is densely settled on a hillside. The soil, owing to the presence of a river beside the village, is predominantly alluvial. The climate is hot and dry in summer and temperate in winter. As for historical background, little information exists about the village, and no reliable scholarly studies have been conducted there; however, based on the evidence within the village and according to the accounts of local elders and informed residents, the village is more than four hundred years old. According to the latest official census in 2011, the village has a population of 249, and a review of population figures from previous years indicates a declining population due to migration to surrounding cities and villages.
At first glance, the village of Potan appears traditional, with a unique architecture surrounded by the heights and orchards that encircle it. The architecture and composition of residential spaces and neighborhood units in this village—as in other villages of the Sarbaz region—are largely influenced by environmental characteristics, the economic activities of the villagers, and their interactions with Pakistan and India. In general, the primary materials of the village's traditional structures are of the low-durability type (mud-brick and daub) with wooden roofs (palm tree trunks, branches, and fronds), and in some cases—particularly in newer construction—the use of fired brick, stone, and in some instances iron in roof structures can be observed. The facades of these buildings are decorated in a traditional manner with cream-colored mud-brick and daub. The facade motifs of these traditional buildings are rendered by local builders in various designs and forms. Of course, as is customary in such villages, one cannot overlook the role that the homeowners themselves play in the construction process, and it is perhaps because of this active participation that no two buildings can be found that are alike. Artistic taste, functional needs, and the financial means of different classes and households have directly influenced both the whole and the parts of the houses in this village. This class diversity is perceptibly reflected in the decorations of the exterior walls (both fixed elements and movable elements such as doors). As can be seen in the photographs, in the village of Potan, ornamentation is confined only to the upper portions of the buildings—not at the lintels of doors and windows or at the base of walls. Moreover, due to the absence of domes in the architecture of the region's mosques, religious buildings do not differ visually or in their motifs from other village structures, and their function can be identified solely by the appearance of short pilasters at the corners of the roof that serve as minarets—for even the portico on the main front of the mosque can be observed in some of the larger residential houses of the village and therefore cannot be considered exclusive to religious use. Another point is that the various facades of a single building (the entrance facade and the other facades) bear differing yet harmonious degrees of ornamentation, and in some cases, regarding the positioning of windows, no adherence to symmetry is observed. During the process of repairing these buildings, notable changes sometimes occur. As we have seen in many other historic fabrics, the absence of skilled craftsmen and access to the original building elements and materials has led to the emergence of different physical manifestations in buildings and fabrics. In this village, changes influenced even by Pakistani architecture can be observed, which have gradually caused the destruction of the fabric and the homogeneous, identity-bearing appearance of the village. If we divide the origins of decorative motifs into two categories—natural and geometric—the traditional and visual art of the Baluch people is predominantly based on the second type. In general, the motifs in the artistic creations of this land's people are simple and devoid of ambiguity or complexity. Straight lines at varying intervals, perceptibly or imperceptibly, differentiate the various recurring and rhythmic geometric patterns from one another.
These motifs, which themselves are mostly devoid of curved lines, are in the first order a combination of triangles and lozenges, and in the second order include squares, crosses, and other geometric shapes. In the accompanying table, the various motifs of the decorative ornaments of the village of Potan and their resemblance to motifs used in the handicrafts of the Baluchestan region have been examined. In this comparison, only two-dimensional forms served as the criterion for analysis, and other influential factors such as the use of color or potential relief work in the ornaments were not considered. It is worth noting, however, that unlike some similar regions—such as India and Africa—where color is used on the exteriors of mud-brick architecture to express moods and tastes, in Potan and most Baluchestan villages we find the least use of color on the exterior render of traditionally built structures. Instead, women's clothing, through the colorful art of embroidery, has borne the responsibility of bringing color and vivacity into daily life.
Nevertheless, the composition of mud-brick architecture upon the undulating mountainous terrain of the village, against the green backdrop of palm groves, together with the interplay of light and shadow created by the recesses and projections of the architectural wall decorations, produces an overall vista that is not only neither monotonous nor tedious, but caresses the eyes and brings the spirit a sense of calm and familiarity. At present, most of these buildings have metal openings, but in the past they featured wooden openings that, depending on the level of prosperity of the property owners, were either ornately carved and richly decorated or plain and inexpensive. In that era, given the existence of the feudal system in Potan and the surrounding villages, two distinct classes of inhabitants could be observed, each with different modes of livelihood and economy, which consequently produced different types of dwellings. The first class consisted of landlords and landowners with mud-brick houses adorned with ornamental facades and carved wooden openings. The second group comprised the slaves and artisans, who themselves lived in gidams (black tents) and were responsible for building most of the components of the landowners' structures. Today, owing to increased communication and rapid social transformations, such a clearly defined distinction can rarely be discerned—which may itself be one of the reasons for the decline of the art of wood carving, alongside the many positive effects of the transformation of this social system. The wood used for making the carved openings was generally imported from other regions and carved on site. Sometimes the entire opening was purchased ready-made from elsewhere and installed locally. In the village of Potan, apart from the main frame posts, little connection is observed between the carved motifs of doors and windows and the mud-brick facade ornamentations; most of these motifs consist of curved lines inspired by nature.
Unlike the mud-brick decorations on the exterior walls of buildings—which mostly comprise rectilinear geometric shapes—the carved motifs of Potan are predominantly curvilinear and do not fall within that category. Although, as noted, the remoteness and difficulty of access to the valuable villages of Baluchestan has until now been an obstacle to the fuller identification and introduction of the distinct, identity-bearing mud-brick decorations of each area, the Baluch carved woodwork has remained even more obscure compared to the architectural decorations of Baluch rural homes. In conclusion, it should be noted that in terms of the similarity and difference between the decorative motifs of these buildings and those of other mud-brick structures in Iran and other countries, the cross and stepped parapet motifs of the rural houses of Potan can be abundantly found in other regions as well. However, the manner of employing triangular motifs and the method of composing motifs in rows can rarely be found outside of Pakistani Baluchestan, and it is precisely this distinction that lends this style of ornamentation in Baluchestan a unique character. Furthermore, rows of motifs that consist of repeated small apertures served, in the absence of modern ventilation systems, to ventilate the hot air accumulated at the top of the interior spaces. These decorative elements can therefore be regarded as possessing dual and functional purposes, operating at this scale much like wind-catchers. The principal decorative features of this type in the buildings of this region include: cross-shaped and triangular perforated mud-brick ornaments, and perforated mud-brick ornaments resembling fakhr-o-madin patterns. Given the volume of commercial interactions and tribal connections that have existed since ancient times between Iranian and Pakistani Baluchestan—and given that until the early twentieth century this expanse as far as the Indus River was a unified whole—it would be presumptuous to say which region took inspiration from the other. It is therefore more appropriate to regard the Baluchestan region, irrespective of its current political boundaries, as a single climatic zone and to examine these similarities within the context of the dynamic Baluch culture. This claim is particularly evident with regard to the ornaments of carved wooden openings. At present, the authenticity of villages such as Potan can be seen as a capacity and platform for preserving and revitalizing the declining and homogenized architectural identity of Baluchestan—one that, with a modest expenditure of time and energy, through the contemporary adaptation and application of indigenous motifs and physical elements in accordance with the rich culture of this pristine and authentic corner of the country, could yield identity-bearing, affordable, and functional models for the architecture of these very regions today.
Kant Fortress, located in a village of the same name near the city of Saravan, is a magnificent example of the fortress-building tradition in Iranian Baluchestan, constructed with tall walls of rammed-earth courses. Photograph by Benyamin Khodadadi.