Sussan Babaie. “Chasing after the Muhandis: Visual Articulations of the Architect and Architectural Historiography”

Abstract

This article pursues the elusive persona of the pre-modern Iranian architect who remains in the shadow of, among others, the more readily identifiable calligrapher and painter, in no small part because the definition of this profession might have differed significantly from our modern concept of the architect (and the modern Arabo-Persian equivalents of the term, i.e., muhandis, mi’mar, etc.). During the period under discussion, roughly coincidental with the Timurid and Safavid dynasties, a f...