Nasir al-Mulk Mosque

The Nasir al-Mulk Mosque stands in the old quarter of Shiraz, a short walk from the bazaar, and is among the most photographed buildings in Iran. It was commissioned by Mirza Hasan Ali Khan Nasir al-Mulk, a Qajar grandee of Shiraz, and built between 1876 and 1888. Iranians and visitors alike often call it the Pink Mosque, after the rose-coloured tiles that cover much of its courtyard.

The plan is a classic one: a rectangular courtyard with a long pool, framed by two iwans, great vaulted portals, and arcades. What makes it distinctive is the tilework. Qajar tile-makers of Shiraz used a warm palette in which pinks, yellows and soft blues outnumber the deep blues of earlier centuries, and they painted roses, irises and vases as well as geometric patterns. The muqarnas vaults, honeycomb half-domes of tiny cells, are tiled down to the smallest facet.

The mosque's fame rests on its winter prayer hall, on the west side of the courtyard. Its courtyard wall is a row of wooden doors and windows set with panels of coloured glass. In the early morning the low sun shines straight through them, and the hall's carpets, twisted stone columns and tiled walls are washed in shifting patches of red, blue, green and gold. The effect lasts only an hour or two, which is why visitors queue at the gate before it opens.

Coloured glass of this kind, orosi windows of wood and glass, was a feature of Qajar houses and pavilions, and the mosque shows the art at its most ambitious. The building is still a place of worship, and it remains in the care of the endowment its founder established.