Sultan Amir Ahmad Hammam

The Sultan Amir Ahmad Bathhouse, also called the Qasemi Bathhouse, is one of the loveliest surviving public baths in Iran, and its roof is one of the most photographed rooftops in the country. The bath was first built in the sixteenth century under the Safavids, damaged by the earthquake that struck Kashan in 1778, and rebuilt in the Qajar period that followed, so that the building we see is a Safavid bath in its plan and a Qajar one in much of its finish. It takes its name from the shrine of Imamzadeh Sultan Amir Ahmad, which stands close by.

Like most Persian baths, it is laid out in two great parts covering about a thousand square metres. First comes the sarbineh, the dressing hall, an octagonal space where bathers undressed, rested and talked; then the garmkhaneh, the hot hall, where the bathing itself took place. Water was drawn from two wells and carried through ceramic pipes. Inside, look for the combination of materials Kashan craftsmen used together — carved plaster, patterned brickwork and glazed tiles in turquoise and gold — and for the way light enters the halls from above rather than through walls, keeping the interior private and evenly lit.

That light comes from the roof, which is the building's great surprise. Seen from above, the bath is a field of low, rounded brick domes, each studded with small convex glass lenses that let daylight into the halls below while hiding the bathers from view. Visitors can walk out among these domes, and the view across them over the rooftops of the old city is one of the classic images of Kashan. After many years as a teahouse, the building was restored and opened as a museum in 1996; it had been registered as a national monument as early as 1956.

Kashan itself is an oasis city on the edge of the Dasht-e Kavir desert, long known for its carpets, its rosewater and its grand merchant houses. The bath stands in the historic quarter among them, a short walk from the Tabatabaei and Borujerdi houses and the Agha Bozorg Mosque, and a visit is easily combined with the Fin Garden, part of the World Heritage listing of Persian gardens.

Getting there

The bathhouse is in the old centre of Kashan, about 1.5 km from the modern city centre, in Isfahan Province. Kashan Airport (KKS) is about 15 km away. Kashan is on Iran's main north–south railway, with a station in the city, and is linked by highway to Qom to the north and Isfahan to the south.