Ahvaz
— the city the heat shapes.
Not only on a wall.
“The capital of Khuzestan, on the only navigable river in Iran. The Karun runs through the centre, crossed by eight bridges; the white cantilever span built by German engineers in 1936 is still the postcard one. Summers cross fifty degrees Celsius. Oil refineries line the southern edge. Persian and Arab quarters share the same dust, the same dates, the same long evening on the corniche when the air finally drops.
Ahvaz, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Ahvaz is the capital of Khuzestan Province in southwestern Iran, about 110 kilometres east of the Iraqi border and 80 kilometres north of the head of the Persian Gulf. Its population is roughly 1.3 million, drawn from both Persian and Arab communities. The Karun River, the only navigable river in Iran, runs through the city centre, crossed by eight bridges. The site sits on the line of the ancient Sasanian city of Hormizd-Ardashir, founded in the third century, and the modern grid was laid out under Reza Shah in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Karun rises in the Bakhtiari range of the Zagros Mountains and runs about 950 kilometres south to the Shatt al-Arab, just below Ahvaz. It is the longest river entirely within Iran and the only one navigable for any meaningful distance, historically reached by paddle steamer from the Gulf. The river drains a basin of roughly 65,000 square kilometres. Within Ahvaz itself eight bridges cross the Karun, the most photographed being the white cantilever span of Pol-e Sefid, opened in 1936.
Ahvaz holds one of the hottest summer climates on Earth. The June-to-September daily highs sit between 45 and 50 degrees Celsius, with the World Meteorological Organization confirming a 54 degree reading on 29 June 2017, among the highest reliably measured surface temperatures in the world. The Karun, the date palms along the corniche, and the late-evening walk-out tradition all turn on this heat. Winters, by contrast, are mild and short, with January highs around 17 degrees and occasional rain.