The palette

Smooth sandstone for the walls and the podium, cut and chiseled sandstone for the frames, bands and cornices, white quartz and calcite for the columns and the drum. The accents are tiles: bright light blue concrete with white quartz in checkers and lapis on the outer borders, turquoise oxidized copper for the domes with copper ribs, and gold finials.

Techniques

• Pointed arches
• Blue and white tile friezes
• The pishtaq
• A smooth onion dome
• Octagonal minarets
• Mashrabiya bays

The steps

1. Sandstone podium
2. Cornice and the grand stair
3. Tiled floor and fountain
4. Hall walls: the ground storey
5. The back portal
6. Hall walls: the upper storey
7. The pishtaq: the great portal frame
8. Blue tiles and the pointed iwan
9. Porticoes: white columns and pointed arches
10. Roof terraces and balustrades
11. Mashrabiya bays
12. Side wings: horseshoe arcades
13. Hall roof and stepped merlons
14. The white drum
15. The onion dome: the swelling
16. The onion dome: the point and the golden finial
17. Minarets: the octagonal shafts
18. Minarets: corbelled balconies and lantern rooms
19. Minarets: little onion domes
20. Wing domes
21. Hanging lanterns inside

How each technique is done and every step explained, in 3D: Learn (members).

Learn it in 3D, step by step