A Restudy of the Form of Isfahan's Palace of Hasht Behesht (The Eight Paradises)

The objective of this paper is to reach the architectural “form” of Hasht Behesht palace through its “figure”. In order to share and to be contemporaneous with the past’s valuable architecture, it’s inevitable to study their forms. In doing this, the presence and influence of the factors and facts related to the work’s poetic and artistic form is more tangible than its skeletal form. This article neither claims to record the history, explain and analyze the architecture of the Palace on the desk of artistic criticism, nor is it limited to pure sciences or subjective point of view without any proof. In fact, it tries to share and be contemporaneous with architecture and also attempts, as much as it can, to pay attention and point out to the reality of life. The essence and truth of the architecture of this Palace is not just the objective source and material to be researchable as a concrete material in the hands of the scientists of the pure sciences or in laboratories. In fact, the dissection of mere form of on architecture al work which generates baseless imitations, and researches like those done by materialists about the materials will themselves be the veil to understanding its truth; a veil which has unfortunately become dominant nowadays. Mystery in this architecture along with showing the unity of the components, also leads them toward a “form” beyond the materialistic mold of the structure’s “figure”. In this article form is studied in the way that the mysteries of the elements – such as water, light, time –as well as material, and center have realized a good and perdurable experience in the form of valuable architectures such as Hasht Behesht Palace. The mystery of water made a transubstantiation of the material world in allegorical forms and was a sign of God’s reflect and emanation in the universe. Substance, which was like wax in the hands of the form of the artist architect and its supernatural and spiritual concepts, was considered as the structure’s materials and substances in the level of figure. In this Palace, continental parameters of the materials, substances, and natural elements were “manifestation of the truth” and not just as the raw material ready to be extracted with the most efficiency. They were dignified and - in the meantime- controlled, and were exploited by man and his life as well. Light in this environment acted as a cognitive factor in the pursuit of exalting the percept and was animating the various shapes and areas in a spectrum of dark to light. You can not talk about the truth of architecture in these areas without time. The time of these areas was perceived in accordance with the inner understanding of the qualitative content of architecture by the evidence. The connection space of the Palace measured and assessed the surrounding areas as a symbol of the center of the universe and acted as a focus and a destination for its surroundings. These places shared the contemporaneousness with the real life at those times.