Salt Pavilion, Sayban Sazeh Kashan Design Group, Hamidreza Mozaffari Bidgoli. Salty Architecture
Our student years and our entry into the realm of architecture coincided with an era in which the views and ideas of the venerable Karim Pirnia regarding Iranian architecture not only held authority but were considered the final word — among them the several principles he attributed to Iranian architecture. One of these principles was "self-sufficiency," meaning that an architectural space should be built with materials and components derived from its immediate environment and should not depend on materials and equipment from outside that environment. Even then, I harbored doubts about how this "principle" could encompass all buildings ranging from a livestock pen in a remote village to the grand and magnificent religious and governmental edifices. For instance, where exactly is the Soltaniyeh Dome or the Vakil Mosque self-sufficient? Or how can the Aqa Bozorg School in Kashan — with the enormous quantity of fuel required to fire its bricks — be considered self-sufficient in that vegetation-barren desert? And is this principle exclusively Iranian, or does the vernacular architecture of every other place in the world share this characteristic? For example, do we have anything more self-sufficient than the Eskimo igloo? And another doubt was whether self-sufficiency is even a virtue in architecture. And would the generalization and extension of this "principle" not call the very existence of the building industry into question? Yet if in distant ages the self-sufficiency of certain types of architecture arose from necessity, in recent decades it has become a deliberate choice that — regardless of its merits or shortcomings — lends a distinctive quality to space and leads to a different spatial experience. Particularly since a space with this characteristic is inherently part of its environment and establishes a more candid, more unveiled dialogue with its surroundings. But in our present age, constructing a building with such attributes is so difficult that few dare attempt it. Setting aside the fact that access to conventional materials is far easier than extracting them from the land and environment, what matters more is the ability to work with such materials — a skill that has become exceedingly rare among designers and master builders. The Salt Pavilion of the Aran-Bidgol salt flat is a classic example of a self-sufficient building that not only derives its construction materials from the environment but whose very subject matter is in a sense generated by its very particular setting. The site of this building is, in its austerity and visual purity, the ultimate that one can imagine: its ground is a boundless white sheet of salt — sometimes moist, sometimes crystallized — devoid of any slope or feature, stretching to the horizon in every direction, and its sky is a uniform blue in which not three wisps of cloud can be seen. Only on the southeastern horizon — more than two — does the specter of a hillock appear, bearing the name Lonely Island. Yet the dazzling beauty of this environment can be likened to the beauty of a wild animal — a leopard or a tiger, for instance: the same creature whose coloring, patterning, and bodily symmetry we admire, but whose flash of ferocity, if it catches us, will prove dangerous and quite possibly fatal. And this place — somewhere twenty-odd kilometers deep into the salt flat — possesses this same contradictory temperament: its summer sun or winter gale needs no more than half a day to bring down any unprotected human, however hardy. This characteristic was the initial spark, or what one might call the occasion, for the Salt Pavilion: a shelter or protected space for the salt miners who extract salt in this vicinity, so they might rest a while in its refuge from the ravages of wind and sun. The Aran-Bidgol salt flat is an environment where erecting anything entails two kinds of harm: one, damage to the very pure and pristine landscape of this environment; and the other, the corrosive assault of this environment's salt upon anything introduced from outside. This reality steered the building's architect toward employing a novel material: salt blocks. Using new and unprecedented materials is an endeavor that requires courage and audacity in itself — especially given the prevailing belief that a good specialist must be a know-it-all who has an answer up his sleeve for every question, or at the very least can find one by searching the internet. But since building with salt — or, in the architect's own phrase, "salty architecture" — was entirely unprecedented, there was inevitably no alternative to research, experimentation, and trial and error in order to obtain suitable materials. From making various bricks with a salt base and diverse additives to extracting raw salt blocks from the salt flat's bed. Hamidreza Mozaffari Bidgoli says: "In the depths of the lake, salt layers approximately 20 centimeters thick are stacked upon one another, meter by meter, to a depth of about two meters. We had made and tested various combinations of salt and other additives and had arrived at some results, but we found it fascinating how the salt layers of the bed demonstrated such resistance against the heavy weight of trucks. We sampled the salt layers from several points of the lake using a cutting machine (asphalt cutter) and performed tests on them until we finally found what was suitable." The blocks that form this building are salt cubes measuring approximately 20 by 25 by 40 centimeters; from a distance, they bear a resemblance to the snow blocks with which mountaineers and skiers build temporary shelters. But at closer range, their extraordinarily beautiful texture and color — the result of thousands of years of salt and dust layers settling upon one another — command attention, with an undertone that shifts under the light of different hours of the day. The form of the Salt Pavilion results from three layers of curved vertical surfaces. According to Hamidreza Mozaffari Bidgoli, the design of the pavilion deliberately avoids straight lines and broken angles, "because in this architecture, an angle is the beginning of ruin." Hence three circular walls have shaped, in succession, the round interior space, the surrounding portico, and the outer terrace (or summer sleeping porch). The terrace space rises approximately three meters above the pavilion's platform, offering a different vantage of the salt flat. This salt flat is the drainage basin of several rivers from the southern Alborz, and during the rainy season, about a hand's breadth of water — some centimeters — collects on the salt flat's floor. This was one reason the Salt Pavilion was built upon a platform roughly 80 centimeters high. But in other seasons, although the salt flat's surface appears dry and beautiful polygons form from salt crystallization, beneath the surface it is saturated with water. Salt extraction is carried out by digging pits in the salt flat's bed; after subsurface water collects in the pit, time is needed for the dissolved salt to crystallize and be harvested.
The project's architect has turned this method of salt harvesting into one of the Salt Pavilion's principal elements: the area around the platform has been excavated so that the perfectly clear water collecting there surrounds the building like the pavilions set amid water — such as El Goli in Tabriz. Given that the water of the bed is extremely saline, this basin requires occasional dredging, and the sediment that collects in it is nothing but pure salt. If we set aside the terrace, the interior space of this building is predominantly inward-facing and, unlike the famous historical pavilions, is not extroverted. Yet two powerful factors — the very particular environment and the distinctive materials — have ensured that the form and space of this building derive meaning from their setting and context. Naturally, the building has also left its mark on the environment: apart from the fact that erecting any volume on this perfectly flat expanse is inherently conspicuous, the ochre-yellow undertone of the salt blocks and the soft blue-green of the surrounding water have introduced distinct colors against the absolutely white background of the salt flat. The spatial and environmental qualities of the Salt Pavilion could not fail to inspire in its builders the idea that its function need not be limited to a shelter for salt miners — that it could be expanded and taken further — and it goes without saying that a tourism function would be the first consideration. The experience of being present and staying in such a different space and environment, and the incomparable tranquility one can find there, is highly desirable for many nature enthusiasts and tourists. For this reason, the builders of the Salt Pavilion envisioned this project as a pilot and initial nucleus that, after gaining experience and addressing its flaws, would be expanded and developed. But "salt-fortunately," this is precisely the point at which the claimants begin appearing one by one, each contributing to the best of their capacity to the wearing down and erosion of what has been built. According to Hamidreza Mozaffari Bidgoli, the first-tier claimant to this project has been the provincial Cultural Heritage and Tourism Administration, which — on the pretexts of marring the environment and landscape and inflicting damage upon the valuable traditional architecture — went so far as to nearly obtain a demolition order for the Salt Pavilion. (How strange that nearby, half-ruined brick rooms with plastic water tanks on their roofs and diesel fuel spilled across the salt flat have apparently neither marred the landscape, nor harmed the environment, nor stained the pure garment of valuable traditional architecture.) In any case, these harassing measures caused the project to effectively languish after construction, never seeing the color of prosperity or development. Yet the Salt Pavilion, despite the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Administration, should be regarded as an exemplar of green architecture. Granted, in an environment that is not only devoid of water and vegetation but even free of microbes and bacteria, the word "green" must be used figuratively. But the Salt Pavilion created no environmental pollution during its construction, used no materials whose production processes are polluting, and if one day it is destroyed, its materials and components will return to their origin and leave no contamination upon the environment. Moreover, the Salt Pavilion — at least in summer — requires no energy expenditure for cooling: the thickness of its walls and the whiteness of its skin ward off the sun's assault, and the salt flat wind, passing over the surrounding basin, brings a pleasant coolness inside. But if the Salt Pavilion acquires a tourism function, that is when new issues will arise that currently leave no trace of themselves or their solutions: How will the water and electricity consumed by tourists be supplied without inflicting visual damage on the environment? How will the resulting wastewater be collected and disposed of? In winter, how will the building's interior be kept sheltered and warm? These are questions whose answers have less to do with architectural or technical matters and more to do with perspective and mode of use — whether a tourist who has chosen to stay in such a space has come to the depths of the salt flat
A view of the salt flat through the texture of salt blocks
A distant view of the salt flat from the rooftop. Interior space
in search of comfort on par with a luxury hotel, or has resigned himself to the salt, the cold, and the sunburn. (One can cite ice hotels as an example, where no attempt is ever made to warm their interiors even to the point that the ice would not melt, because the cold is a vital part of the meaning and spatial identity, and if a guest cannot endure the cold, his only recourse is to leave the ice hotel and stay in an ordinary one.) The Salt Pavilion can be analyzed from several perspectives: from the standpoint of exterior form design, from the mood and atmosphere of its interior spaces, from the reciprocal relationship with its surrounding environment, and from the standpoint of materials and construction techniques. Quite clearly, the architect's primary preoccupation has been experimentation and innovation in materials and texture, while his formal and spatial concerns have been more directed at ensuring the Salt Pavilion does not inflict visual damage upon the salt flat landscape — and one can acknowledge that he has succeeded in both regards. But these questions remain in their place: Why does the interior space have more the character of a shelter, and why was no better provision made for the relationship between inside and outside and for exploiting the matchless panorama of the salt flat than a few openings in the outer wall? Or does the staircase created between the two circular walls, at the moment of setting foot upon it, generate an expectation that is not adequately answered at its terminus (the terrace)? Could the terrace and rooftop spaces not have been put to better use than they are, especially for viewing the salt flat from a different vantage point? These are questions that, admittedly, do not come to mind upon one's first encounter with this space, and if someone surrenders to the environment and the color and texture of the materials without seeking critique and spatial analysis, perhaps such thoughts would never occur to them at all. But there are technical errors in the project that are entirely conspicuous, and it is impossible for anyone, however enchanted by the environment, not to see them: the most prominent among these is the use of iron in the domed ceiling and in the lintels of the openings, in which — over the single year since the building's completion — signs of deterioration have become plainly visible. This must be attributed to haste and the difficulties arising from bureaucratic interference and the usual narrow-mindedness, which did not afford the builders the opportunity to adopt better methods and to design and execute more carefully considered details. Likewise the semi-transparent covering of the portico, executed hastily and unsuitably with polycarbonate sheeting, and the misshapen gutter intended to channel rainwater downward. Yet the salt blocks and the building's principal elements, despite the Salt Pavilion having been effectively abandoned and unused during this period, have admirably demonstrated their performance and durability, suffering no damage whatsoever from the extremely harsh environmental conditions of the salt flat. On the whole, the Salt Pavilion — for all the theoretical criticisms that may be leveled at it — is a bold and valuable experiment in finding and employing a new material and working in a unique, one-of-a-kind context, and it should truly be regarded as the opening of a new passage in vernacular and environmental architecture. In any case, in a world where everything everywhere grows more and more alike by the day, the existence of a place where one can lie upon a bed of salt in utter silence and serenity, and flavor a cucumber by rubbing it against the wall, is a blessing in itself.
* Writing this text would not have been possible without the sympathy and assistance of Mr. Hamidreza Mozaffari Bidgoli, for which I am deeply grateful.
Footnote: Another example in this regard is the tours of war zones under the banner of Rahian-e Noor (Pilgrims of Light): traveling by air-conditioned bus, being served sherbet and fruit in surviving wartime bunkers, and hearing the events of the war narrated by young men who were conceived years after the war ended — how close can this possibly come to the actual feeling of war?