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Yassi Gabbay: Abbasi Hotel at Isfahan, Iran

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Yassi Gabbay Yassi Gabbay, an Iranian architect who now lives in California, studied at the University of Tehran and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He developed an architectural firm (TAMSA Consulting Architects) that employed an international team of sixty-five people and was recognized as one of the leading architectural firms in Iran, and he was twice decorated for his design work.³ He was well-known for blending innovative contemporary design with traditional landscapes and craftsmanship. He won a national competition to design the plaza in front of the hotel, and his work on both the hotel and the surrounding site led to his selection by the leaders of the Jewish community to design the expansion of Esther's Tomb at Hamedan, Iran.⁴ The expansion and renovation of Esther's Tomb and the renovation of the Shah Abbas Hotel are among his most famous works. 

    Architect Yassi Gabbay on designing the expansion of the Tomb of Esther, Hamedan, Iran

History The building itself (though not the hotel) dates from the reign of Sultan Husayn of the Safavid dynasty, which lasted from 1694 to his overthrow in 1722. Originally a caravansary that provided lodging for passengers, the building was remodeled from 1919 to 1927, in order to preserve it as a historic monument.⁵ The renovations maintained the caravansary’s outer façade but remodeled the chambers into hotel rooms, echoing the building’s first use as lodgings for visitors and passengers. In 1932, the Iran Insurance Company expanded the hotel, purchasing 11500 square meters of land on the building’s eastern side.⁶ Under the direction of Yassi Gabbay, more construction occurred from 1955-59, modernizing the building and creating the gorgeous interiors still visible today. The hotel remains a popular destination, and it was the filming location for the 1974 movie Ten Little Indians.

Architecture The hotel fuses traditional Safavid and Seljuk architectural styles with modern materials to create a truly incredible visual spectacle. The Chehelsotoun Hall, a restaurant that has a capacity of one thousand people, juxtaposes plaster molding that imitates the Qajar and Safavid periods with mirror-encrusted stalactites and concrete planes embellished with colored glass.⁷ The Zarrin Hall, originally constructed in a Safavid style, also contains traces of Seljuk arcades.⁸ The light green walls are inlaid with Safavid Cathay designs, constructed using twenty thousand sheets of gold. In the Naghsh-el-Jahan Hall, a fourteen meter plate of colored glass creates three huge windows, letting in light to illuminate the Qajar-era wooden pillars taken from an antique house.⁹ The entrance is framed by paintings in the style of Reza Abbasi, the great Safavid artist.

Jewish Community of Isfahan The Jewish community of Isfahan is among the oldest in Iran. According to tradition, Jews moved to Isfahan either in 586 BC after the destruction of the First Temple, in the fourth century during the reign of Shapur II, or in the early fifth century during the reign of Yazdigrd I.¹⁰ Little is known about the Jews of Isfahan prior to the Islamic era, but after the Arab conquest of Isfahan in the 640s, the city eventually became the center of Iran’s Jewish community. Isfahan reached a political and cultural apex during the Safavid dynasty (1501-1722), and in 1580 its Jewish population was between eight and ten thousand people.¹¹ It was the center of Jewish learning in Iran, and the Jews of Isfahan were renowned for their artisanship. The Jewish population of Isfahan declined after the eighteenth century, as a result of a combination of oppressive regimes, heavy taxation, and severe famines in the nineteenth century.¹² Jews emigrated en masse from Iran following the revolution in 1979. The present Jewish population of Isfahan is roughly fifteen hundred; although at one time the city had eighteen synagogues, only one remains.¹³

Isfahan, Iran

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