The western iwan of the Takht-e Soleymān is one of the most important buildings in this area. Based on some accounts, this iwan was constructed during the Sāssānid period and the Ilkhanate kings restored it after 700 years. This unique structure is statically unstable and needs strengthening. To this end, becoming familiar with the building materials and their use in this structure are important. The aim of this research is examining the building materials used in the western iwan of Takht-e Soleymān in the two significant architectural periods of Takht-e Soleymān (Sāssānid and Ilkhānid), with focus on the use of the building materials and their positioning. This research has been conducted using the field study method. The research results show that the building materials used in the construction of the western iwan are stone, brick, and half baked, half worked plaster. Smoothed stone is used in the first architectural period following the style of all the other structures built in the area. Using the excavations near the iwan abutment, and comparing with the northern and sudden supports, it was revealed that the abutment of the iwan are rows of smoothed stone in stretcher bond formation. The main body of the abutment, up to the brickwork, is also built from smoothed stone to a height of 5.2 meters. The remarkable point in this regard is the gradual change of the stretcher brickwork to the stretcher-header brickwork (similar to the method used in the perimeter wall). This is done in such a way that the lower rows are stretcher brickwork and the higher rows are stretcher header. On the top part and the top of the smoothed masonry, square bricks are used with sides of 29 centimetres and thickness of 7 centimetres. The brickwork is stretcher with a one third overlap. By observing the similar buildings to the iwan in the area, it seems that the barrel vault was also made of bricks. The mortar used in the construction of stone and brick part in this architectural period was half baked, half worked plaster. In the second architectural period in which the Ilkhanate reconstructed the parts fallen down since the first architectural period, stone rubble and plaster were the main building materials. The top parts and some of the parts which had been separated from the body of the iwan as a whole layer were reconstructed. A cover of ornamental tiles [qashani] and from the inside and muqarnas in the apex of the iwan. The stone rubble used in the western iwan in this period was the remnants of the building materials used in the first period which differed in dimension and was placed in horizontal rows. The impost of the vault is evident by a 10 cm projection of the building materials. The mortar used is half baked half worked plaster as was revealed using chemical analysis. Another remarkable element in this period is the qashani covering the inside of the abutments which is a remarkable ornamental element of the Ilkhanate period in this location. The eastern front and the sides of the iwan entrance, there are remnants of plaster muqarnas in three rows.

Golestān Palace is the remnant of the historic citadel of Tehran, which dates back to the Safavid period, and the Zandiyeh and Fatḥ-Ali Shah Qajar. But because of extensive repairs by Nasser al-Din Shah in 1905, most of the buildings in this complex are regarded to be from the Nasseri era. Golestān Palace was the residence of the Qajar kings and the country’s administrative heart whose architectural decorations had formed in connection with traditional cultural concepts, as well as a mixture of traditional and western and fully western concepts. To decorate the palaces and government buildings in this era, some religious, national and traditional concepts, such as common tales, were used and building pictorial backgrounds using natural scenery, structures, depicting animals, plants, and inanimate objects became popular. Painting fruit was a new concept which appeared in the Haft Rang [seven colour] tiles used on the outside walls of the Golestān Palace. These tiles were painted with depictions of bunches of flowers, and fruit such as pomegranates, grapes, cucumbers, Persian melons, apples, pears, and watermelons. Given the importance of food among Iranians, the fruit paintings can be considered alongside the cultural and social changes during the Qajar era which have been reflected in travelogues and photographs remaining of that time; foreign tourists have mentioned the welcoming of guests by various types of food and fruit and have described the Iranian food spreads and their culinary traditions. The main question of this research is to do with the method of depicting fruit in the tiles of the Golestān Palace and the general aim of this article is understanding how the cultural evolution and changes in artistic depictions have been reflected in the Qajar era.  This research considers raw food to be a cultural element, and uses a descriptive-analytical approach, gathering information from libraries, making use of photographs, and travelogues related to the Qajar era. The history of depicting fruit in Iranian Architectural ornamentation is considered to go back to the Afshar era and the Indian masons which has remained as expanded decorative paintings. In the painted tiles of the Qajar era, fruit types appeared which have never been used as ornamentation before. For example, apart from the common fruit, vegetables and fruit such as cherries, sour-cherries, and corn were painted on the tiles of the Golestān Palace. The corn with large yellow kernels, and some red cherries have been depicted alongside other fruit. What is remarkable about the depiction of the fruit, is the ornamental arrangement of the fruit with leaves and flowers; most of the fruit are seen as individual or bunches in arrangements that includes a framework of leaves and flowers. The frames are not uniform and sometimes are accompanied by architectural elements such as pillars or sometimes with green vines and trestles of greenery. The fruit are depicted freely using different colour shading, colour bordering using lines, and cross hatching which has been copied form imported post cards and magazine pictures. Plants and fruit have had a legendary, symbolic and ritualistic place in the Iranian psyche since the ancient times; but, in the Qajar era, they have appeared in a realistic style and as one of the main concepts of depictions, rivalling the European still life paintings. The findings in this research show that, although the fruits depictions in the Golestān Palace are a continuation of the previous eras, but the cultural evolution of the Qajar era has had an effect on them and has changed a lot in relation to the Iranian culinary culture.