Persian Gardens in Cold and Dry Climate: A Case Study of Tabriz's Historical Gardens

Throughout history, gardens and garden designing has been in the attention of Persian architects who had special expertise in the construction of gardens. The appearance of Islam and allegories of paradise taken from that in Koran and Saints’ sayings gave spirituality to garden construction. Climate conditions have also had an important role in this respect but little research has been done about it and most of the investigations have referred to spiritual aspects and forms of garden. The cold and dry climate that has enveloped parts of West and North West of Iran has many gardens with different forms and functions, which have not been paid much attention to by studies done so far. The aim of this paper is to identify the features and specifications of cold and dry climate gardens with an emphasis on Tabriz’s Gardens.  Due to its natural and strategic situation, Tabriz has always been in the attention of governments throughout history; travellers and tourists have mentioned Tabriz as a city that has beautiful gardens. But, the earthquakes and wars have left no remains of those beautiful gardens. This investigation, by a comparative study of the climates in Iran and the effect of those climates on the formation of gardens and garden design, tries to identify the features and characteristics of gardens in cold and dry climate. The method of study is interpretive-historical on the basis of written documents and historic features and field study of existing gardens in this climate. The results show that, with respect to natural substrate, vegetation, the form of water supply, and the general form of the garden; gardens in dry and cold climate are different from gardens in other climates.

Ahad Nejad Ebrahimi, Farnaz Nazarzadeh, Elnaz Nazarzadeh