The Study of Decorations in the Entrance Facade (as the Junction of city and building) of Shiraz Historical Mosques

Façade, portal of entrance of each building, have great importance, since it is junction to the city, and symbol of identity of each building. It is more important in mosques, which are the main buildings of the Iranian-Islamic city, because of it’s importance in attraction to the audience and transfering the concepts of Islam. Historically, the emergence of ornaments in mosques begins first with the altar and adjacent walls. It then passes through to other parts, eventually in the entrance, which show sight of mosque through the passage. A facade, which is edge of crossing the material world to reach the spiritual level, requires ornaments that connect this two different worlds. Such ornaments, which seem to have grater duty than other ornaments, are worth knowing and analyzing. This research is aimed at examining the form and content of these ornaments. Therefore, the entrance façade of all Shiraz registered historical mosques which have no unprincipled changes have been investigated. In 15 selected mosques, descriptive-analytic studies were performed by collecting data from library and field method. In the end, in addition to identifying various ornaments, such as brick, stone, tile, the location of their use in front of each mosque, motifs, lines and mentioned contents, were also examined. Finally, it was found that tile had highest and bricks had the minimum use among the other ornaments in the mosques of Shiraz. Despite the fact that it was used in the Safari era, stone ornaments were removed in the period after that, but since the Qajar period it has used again. Mogharnas, which is commonly used ornament since the Safavid era, has always been accompanied by inscriptions. The inscriptions in which most of the themes emphasized on prayers and its time.