Shah Abbasi Caravanserai

Semnan · IRAN DIGITAL WALL

The central courtyard is the key to reading Semnan’s Shah Abbasi Caravanserai. Rooms, stores and stables were arranged around it to serve the different needs of a caravan within one coherent stopping place. This Safavid way station belonged to routes across central Iran, where the secure movement of goods was part of the purpose. Consider how travellers, animals and loads would relate to those spaces. The visit is worthwhile for the architecture of travel itself: a building shaped by more than rest, with transport and trade written into its plan.