Timur built the Saray palace ("White, i.e. beautiful, Palace") in his home city Shahr-i Sabz, of which only the ruins of the enormous, richly decorated entrance portal survive. This was around 50 meters (165 feet) high, the span of its arch was 22 meters (72 feet), and it was flanked by massive corner pillars with polygonal bases and round shafts. Behind the portal extended a spacious courtyard with a water basin, enclosed by two-story buildings incorporating a multitude of columns and living accommodation. The portal inscription reads: "If you doubt our power, just take a look at our buildings!" and thus encapsulated the social function of architecture under Timur.

The colossal memorial and shrine complex built between 1389 and 1399 over the tomb of local saint Khoja Ahmad Yasawi in Jassv, the present-day town of Turkestan in Kazakhstan, has also been subordinated to this central idea. The building's complicated design, which involved the various types of room being fitted into a rectangular "pouch," indicates extremely rational and effective planning. It is remarkable that the enormous dome of the central chamber, lavishly decorated with muqarnas, rests not on spandrels or squinches, but merely on a structure of a type already described, consisting of wooden beams placed diagonally across the corners of the room.

General view & detail of a domed side chamber of the Bibi Khanum Friday Mosque, Samarqand, 1399-1404 - In contrast to the palaces and Friday mosques that usually have vaulted iwans on their cross-axes, the gigantic Timurid Bibi Khanum mosque was given "little mosques" in this position in the middle of the courtyard side arcades. They resembled the enormous, domed main building at the end of the longitudinal axis but were simply smaller in scale. The high outer dome of the building, which covers a structural inner dome, is stabilized by projecting brick ribs and is remarkable primarily for its splendid polychrome tile covering, which displays ornamental features and inscriptive bands.

Only a few impressive fragments remain of what was a similar and just as grandiose sacred and memorial complex from the end of the 14th Century. This construction stood in Shahr-i Sabz, Timur's home city, and was apparently supposed to be his last resting place. This mighty building 70 x 50 meters ( 300 x 165 feet) bore the name Dar al-Sadat ("House of Power") and was located in the southeastern part of the city. From the point of view of its design it resembled the Turkestan building: behind the high entrance niche between the two massive corner pillars there would probably have been a large, domed chamber, and behind this in turn, positioned on the same axis, the mausoleum. Each of these areas would have been enclosed by two groups of rooms of various sorts. Only
the left corner pillar of the portal remains, into which is integrated the unusually high mausoleum of Timur's son Jahangir, and which has then been made even higher by the addition of a pyramid roof.

 
The tomb of another of Timur's sons, Umar Sheikh, is supposed to have been located in the right hand corner pillar, which has now disappeared. The mausoleum Timur built for himself was never used. Of this, a marble-paneled vault with a shallow dome of unusual construction and a marble sarcophagus have survived. In 1404 a reception held in honor of the Spanish ambassador de Clavijo, who left an enthusiastic and vivid description of the event, took place in one of the rooms of this palace-like mausoleum.