Department of Art History

We invite you to join the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago for this upcoming lecture as part of the 2025-26 Smart Lecture series. The lecture is Thursday, February 5th in CWAC 157 at 5:00pm CT with a Q&A session and reception to follow. 

This talk explores the aesthetics, semiotics, and sensorium of mirror-clad palaces in seventeenth-century Isfahan, Iran. Sheathed in minute mirror pieces, meticulously arranged in intricate patterns, these edifices were infused with their own fragmented images during the day; yet they would have been equally resplendent at night, during nocturnal festivities, when myriad lamps and torches were lit in and around them. These palaces owed their distinctive revetments to the mobility of materials in the early modern world. Traditionally, mirrors were made from metals, but beginning in the seventeenth century, Venetian looking glasses were imported in large quantities and glass mirrors were locally manufactured. This presentation examines the emergence and development of this decorative mode in the palace architecture of Safavid Iran (1501-1722). The significance of these glittering palaces lay in their phenomenological and semiotic dimensions alike: they afforded a form of exuberant sensuality that resonated with the taste of the era while also evoking the archetypical palace of the prophet-king Solomon. 

Farshid Emami (Ph.D., Harvard University, 2017) is an associate professor in the Department of Art History at Rice University. He specializes in the history of architecture, urbanism, and the arts in the Islamic lands, with a focus on the early modern period and Safavid Iran. His first monograph, Isfahan: Architecture and Urban Experience in Early Modern Iran (2024), reconstructs the spaces and senses of seventeenth-century Isfahan, the Safavid capital, and narrates its story as a social living environment. It received the 2025 book award from the International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA). His current projects explore the materiality and sensorium of Safavid palaces and the intersections of architecture and literature in pre-modern Islamic lands. Other publications have addressed topics such as lithography in nineteenth-century Iran and modernist architecture and urbanism in the Middle East. 

Accessibility
Persons with disabilities who need an accommodation in order to participate in this event should contact taiahw@uchicago.edu for assistance.

Support
The public lecture is sponsored by the Department Art History and generously supported by The Smart Family Foundation.