Glassware and Ceramics Museum (Abgineh Museum)

The Glassware and Ceramics Museum, known as the Abgineh Museum, occupies a Qajar-era mansion on Si-e Tir Street in central Tehran, near the National Museum of Iran. The building was originally constructed in the early 20th century as a private residence and later served as the Egyptian embassy before being converted into a museum in 1976 by architect Hans Hollein, whose renovation added modernist display niches and lighting within the historic shell. The permanent collection traces the history of glassmaking and ceramic production in Iran from the Bronze Age through the Qajar era, including Sassanid-period glass vessels, Seljuk and Timurid lustreware ceramics, and 19th-century Qajar glass. Objects are displayed chronologically across the building's two floors, moving from the earliest excavated pottery on the ground floor to more refined Islamic-era glass and ceramic pieces upstairs, with Hollein's white display plinths and recessed lighting designed to set each object apart from the historic architecture around it. The mansion's original staircase, stained glass and decorative plasterwork survive alongside the modern museum fittings, creating a visible contrast between the building's Qajar-era residential origins and its later museum function. Restoration in the 1970s stabilized the structure and adapted it for climate-controlled display cases needed to protect fragile glass and ceramic pieces, and the building itself is considered an example of successful adaptive reuse of a historic Tehran residence.