Variety of designs and motif in the Knocker of historical buildings in the traditional texture of Yazd City

Manufacturers of handicrafts in Iran, create an atmosphere that, apart from material use, indicates their deep desire to decorate, by decorating everyday consumer items via useful creativity. For centuries, the Door knocker, apart from their main function, has adorned wooden doors of old houses well. A Knocker is a metal object made of iron, which was installed on the wooden door of historic buildings in both male and female forms by nalchegar and blacksmiths to inform the owner of house and also to close the door easily. Knocker is the first object that one touches before entering the Iranian architectural space, and its decoration and arrangement can be the best prelude for the Iranian architect’s perspective. Yazd is a city located in central plateau of Iran, with a hot and dry desert climate, which due to special geographical conditions, has been less exposed to crises and major conflicts and, consequently, cultural conflicts. Therefore, the oldest motifs of Iran, such as cypress and sun, proportional to local interests, with the least intrusion and occupation and maintaining historical continuity, can be seen in it. This feature can be seen in the general form of Knocker as well as the carved motifs on it, proportional to the extent of the application of these two motifs in other aspects of the visual culture of Yazd. Blacksmithing and Nalchegar, which is a subset of blacksmithing, are two documentary professions that, along with coppersmithing, have enjoyed great prosperity in this area in the recent years. Since the Knocker makers, in designing the shape and form and decorating it, besides using meaningful motifs, have also used their freedom and expression of their emotion, and since the general form and arrangement of motifs depends on the technique of performing the motif on the Knocker were considered case-by-case and specially by the researchers. In this research, the authors have tried to study the superficial scatter, the multiplicity of forms and variety of decorations on the Knocker on a case-by-case basis in the traditional texture of Yazd, relying on descriptive-analytical method and field observations. Accordingly, the authors first introduced the Knocker its fixed parts, and the terms used by local blacksmiths and nalchegar about the Knocker of Yazd. Then, in the next section, they categorized the general form of Knockers into two groups of Cypress-shaped and round Knocker and mentioned the subsets of these two groups. In the next section, the decorations on the Knocker and the arrangement of the motif on it were considered. The result of this paper led to identify the general form of the Knocker made in Yazd and the common decorations on these Knockers, to identify non-native Knockers or made by non-native craftsmen, the craftsman's focus on the execution of geometric, plant and written motifs, dominance of the original form on the decorative elements and its strength to decorations, the presence of the living imagination and the connection of the motifs in the Knockers with other branches of handicrafts, such as carpets and tiles.