Bushehr
— — a port town the sea wind shaped.
Not only on a wall.
“A port city on a low peninsula reaching into the Persian Gulf, capital of Bushehr Province in southwestern Iran. The old quarter, Bafte Qadim, holds eighteenth- and nineteenth-century houses of coral stone and palm-wood beams, narrow alleys cut to let the sea wind through. The corniche runs the western edge. Metropolitan population around 220,000.
Bushehr, 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.
Bushehr lies on a low peninsula on the northern Persian Gulf coast, about 1,200 kilometres south of Tehran and 280 kilometres west of Shiraz. The city is the capital of Bushehr Province and a long-standing Iranian naval port. The old quarter, known as Bafte Qadim, covers roughly 4.5 square kilometres along the western shore. The metropolitan population is about 220,000. The port handles cargo, fishing, and ferries to islands in the Gulf and onward to the Persian Gulf states.
The historic houses of Bafte Qadim were built between the seventeenth and early twentieth centuries from coral stone, lime plaster, and palm-wood beams. Tall facades carry shanashils, wooden lattice balconies that screen interior rooms from the sun. Narrow alleys are oriented to channel the sea breeze. The Imamzadeh-ye Bibi-Hakimeh and the Rais-Ali Delvari house anchor the quarter. UNESCO has not inscribed the old town, but Iran's Cultural Heritage Organisation has held it on the national register since 1993.
The climate is hot-arid coastal. Summer humidity along the Gulf can hold dew points above 28 degrees Celsius, with daytime temperatures into the low forties. The shamal wind blows from the northwest through much of the year and shaped both the houses and the rhythm of the port. Winter is short and mild, in the high teens. The Bushehr nuclear power plant, the first in the Iranian programme, sits about 17 kilometres south of the city; it has been connected to the grid since 2011.