studio chahar
Varzaneh Museum
Varzaneh, Isfahan Province, Iran. 2014.
Varzaneh lies on the southern Silk Road, where caravans rested beside the Zayandeh River before entering the central plateau. The Varzaneh Eco-Museum builds on this history, around the Gavkhouni wetland, the caravanserais and the cotton fields, to revive the town's weaving workshops and its Safavid fabrics and patterns.
With Isfahan's handicrafts and cultural heritage organizations and private designers, the project revived 26 local workshops, restored caravanserais and historic bridges, and turned the Yousefi house into the Varzaneh Museum of Ethnography and Textiles, with ten weaving workshops for young people.
The region's white chador was also registered as national heritage.
Chosen in 2014 as the best thesis in the 25-year history of the Museum Studies department in Iran, the project brought so many visitors that at Nowruz 2015 a traffic queue 13 kilometers long formed at the entrance to the region.
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