 Gardens |
|
Gardens have often been an integral feature of Islamic architectural design, particularly for palaces.
|
|
Several Umayyad palaces seem to have incorporated gardens as part of their design. At Khirbet al-Mafjar in the Jordan valley there is a large square pool with a central pavilion on columns which would have formed the centrepiece of a garden. At Qasr al-Hayr West it is likely that the immediate vicinity of the palace had a garden whilst there was a large walled garden enclosure to the west of the main building. The exact function of some of the early Islamic gardens is not always clear and some may have been purely for producing vegetables. In Islamic Spain the garden was an integral part of the palatial design of Madinat al Zahra and reached its peak in the gardens of Granada. The development of formal gardens became an art form in Iran from at least the fourteenth century as can be seen from their frequent depiction in miniature paintings of the period. Under the Timurids gardens became a priority for royal residences which were often no more than pavilions in large formal gardens. The Mughals of India acquired their interest in gardens from the Timurids and developed the idea of a memorial garden which would surround a tomb.
From the sixteenth century garden cities became fashionable throughout the Islamic world with cities such as Isfahan in Iran or Meknes in Morocco. Further east in Java and Indonesia gardens were an essential part of the pre-Islamic Hindu tradition and continued to be built by the Muslim sultans.
[hide description]
|
|
A. Petruccioli (ed.), The Garden as a City: The City as a
Garden, Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design
Research Centre, Rome 1984.
|
|
N. Titley and F. Wood, Oriental Gardens, BL Humanities.
1991.
|
|
|
|
IHS0106
Aerial view, buttressed retaining...
|
|
|
IHP0129
Exterior view of the first terrace:...
|
|
|
IHP0151
Exterior view of lower terrace...
|
|
| Search Alphabetically |
|
Legal Notes
Contact ArchNet