The comparative study of Girih tiles ornamentation in the historical villages of Masouleh and Abyaneh

From the past to the present, the historical villages of Masouleh and Abyaneh have had many similarities in the fields of decoration and architecture despite the climatic, geographical and ancient differences, and the existence of such commonalities has always been of interest to many researchers. Considering that the use of decorations such as gereh-chini is being forgotten in contemporary times and also no community research has been performed on the gereh-chini structures of Masouleh and Abyaneh villages, the present study is trying to preserve and record such a valuable heritage. The authors use comparative studies to answer the following questions: Have the use of gereh-chini decorations been effective in creating architectural spaces and climatic adaptation of the two villages? What are the differences and similarities in the visual structure of gereh-chini and functional patterns of the windows of the two villages? The research is descriptive-analytical, comparative and library and field research has been implemented. Also, in the climatic analysis of the samples, VELUX Daylight Visualizer 3 2019 architectural software has been used. The results show that gereh-chini decorations in both villages have created spaces such as ground floor entrance corridors, mashrabiyas, pre-entrances and in the window openings as small and large windows and railings. The results also show that in the construction of gereh-chini in the historical village of Abyaneh, more diverse materials such as bricks, clays and more native and original woods have been used compared to the historical village of Masouleh. The results of climate analysis in the software environment also show the appropriate functional effects of gereh-chini in light control and entrance in winter and summer in both villages. The results of the analyzes in the patterns section of the two villages also show that there are 188 gereh-chini patterns in Masouleh village and 8 gereh-chini patterns in Abyaneh village, of which 11% of the patterns in the two villages have structural and nominal similarities.