Rakhtshuy Khaneh of Zanjan

The Rakhtshuy Khaneh, “the laundry house”, is one of the most unusual historic buildings in Iran. Built in the old quarter of Zanjan in the 1920s, it was a public laundry where the women of the city could wash their family's clothes and bedding in clean, running water, under one roof, in warmth and privacy. Before it was built, much of this work was done in the cold of the town's streams and channels.

The building is long and low, sunk partly below street level so that water could reach it by gravity. Visitors descend a flight of steps into a vaulted brick corridor that leads to the main hall, where the water ran in stone channels and basins along the floor. Side rooms held hot water, and the arrangement allowed clean water to arrive at one end and used water to drain away at the other. The brick vaults and domes, lit by openings in the roof, give the interior the feel of a bathhouse, which in some ways it resembles.

The laundry remained in use for decades, until piped water and washing at home made it unnecessary. It was later restored and opened as a museum of anthropology. Life-size figures in the old washing hall show women at work, their clothes and tools reconstructed from memory and photographs, and other rooms display the crafts and daily life of the region.

For many visitors it is a moving place, a building made for ordinary domestic labour, and for women in particular, at a time when few public buildings were designed with them in mind. It is now one of the most visited sights in Zanjan.