Ustad Ali Maryam was a famous architect ("mimar") of 19th century Persia.

He is famous for designing three edifices in particular, all in Kashan

Kashan

Kashan is a city in and the capital of Kashan County, in the province of Isfahan, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 248,789, in 67,464 families....

:

• The Borujerdi-ha House
  Khaneh Borujerdi ha
  Khāné-ye Borūjerdīhā or "Borujerdis' House" is a historic house in Kashan, Iran.The house was built in 1857 by architect Ustad Ali Maryam, for the bride of Haji Mehdi Borujerdui, a wealthy merchant...
  
    (1857)
• The Tabatabaei House
  Khaneh Tabatabaei ha
  Khaneh Tabatabaei-ha or "The Tabatabaeis' House" is a historic house in Kashan, Iran.The house was built in early 1880s for the affluent Tabatabaei family....
  
   (1840s)
• Timcheh Amin-al Dowleh (pictured)

The name "ustad" means master in Persian. The name "Maryam" he picked up when Ustad Ali built a beautiful house for a woman by the name "Maryam" in Kashan.

It is written that Ustad Ali Maryam would build maquette

Maquette

A maquette is a small scale model or rough draft of an unfinished architectural work or a sculpture...

 models of the buildings he would build.

The house of Borujerdi-ha alone took 18 years to build. It was built for the bride of the Borujerdi-ha family, who came from the affluent Tabatabaei family, whom Ustad Ali had built their house some years earlier.

The Timcheh amin-al dowleh (built in 1863) was commissioned by Amin al-dowleh, a royal Qajarid politician, and is located in the Kashan Bazaar

Kashan Bazaar

Kashan Bazaar is an old bazaar in the center of the city of Kashan, Iran. It is thought to have been built in the Seljuk era with renovations during the Safavid period....

, where Persian rug

Persian rug

The Persian carpet is an essential part of Persian art and culture. Carpet-weaving is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished manifestations of Persian culture and art, and dates back to ancient Persia. In 2008, Iran’s exports of hand-woven carpets was $420 million or 30% of the world's market...

s are still sold and traded. Ustad Ali also built a house and caravanserai

Caravanserai

A caravanserai, or khan, also known as caravansary, caravansera, or caravansara in English was a roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the day's journey...

 for Amin al-Dowleh.

See also

• Iranian architecture
  Iranian architecture
  Iranian architecture or Persian architecture is the architecture of Iran . It has a continuous history from at least 5000 BCE to the present, with characteristic examples distributed over a vast area from Turkey to North India and the borders of China and from the Caucasus to Zanzibar...
  
  
• Traditional Persian residential architecture
  Traditional Persian residential architecture
  Traditional Persian residential architecture, is the architecture employed by builders and craftsmen in the cultural Greater Iran and the surrounding regions to construct vernacular houses...
  
  
• List of historical Iranian architects