Volta dei Cento Archi

I am the Volta dei Cento Archi wallpaper, born of an idea of sacred architecture seen frontally, with no vanishing point granted to the eye. I belong to the Persian Islamic style, the one that taught brick to become geometry and structure to become silent prayer. I depict a prayer hall covered by a dense net of brick ribs crossing and recrossing, rising from thick octagonal piers set in a strict grid: the ribs interlace into star and diamond cells that thicken towards the crown of each bay, weaving a continuous surface that fills the entire upper part of the composition, without a single medallion or void to break the drawing.

My palette is that of sun-baked clay and lime plaster: warm terracotta and ochre, a faded buff filling the webs of the vaults, umber and smoke-grey shadows gathering in the hollows, lower courses darkening almost to charcoal at the base of the piers. Up close every course of brick can be counted one by one, every joint carries its thin shadow of mortar, and where the ribs come down onto the piers small shaped bricks fan out, like a multitude of small gestures composing a single drawing.

Whoever chooses the Volta dei Cento Archi wallpaper welcomes home a geometry that has crossed the centuries without losing its rigour. WallZad renders every joint and every voussoir with the care of those who know the weight of real material, for interiors where silence needs a form.