Eram Garden, Shiraz, Fars Province, Iran

The first instances of gardens, as what we understand from the term today, began when the wild fruit trees were fenced for protection from the animals and other human. Later, Humans added another aspect to the practical function of such oases and the gardens became a deliberate attempt in imitating nature. The earliest traces of garden making in Iran goes back to the reign of Cyrus, who made a garden in his capital, Pasargadae, in a quadripartite arrangement. This garden was the beginning of a style of garden arranging which is known as Iranian Garden. The Iranian attempted to recreate an image of their Utopia or Paradise with this construct. Iran is a dry country and water is very precious for its people, naturally, garden as the manifestation of the abundance of water has an important place in the Iranian culture.

The Iranian Garden is an oasis surrounded by protective walls that have both technical and philosophical function. The technical aspect comes from the need to protect the garden against animals and people, as well as, the need to keep the inside moister and modify the weather. The philosophical purpose reflects that aspect of Iranian culture which emphasizes on separation of inner and outer spaces; this culture was intensified with the advent and flourishment of Islam.

Entering this garden is possible through a portal entrance that yet again is a reminder of the importance of the inner spaces. The visitors could not just pass through the door and enter the garden. This walled space acts as a filter for the garden to control those who had the permission to go inside and those who had to be rejected. Passing the portal entrance, you enter the garden that may be built on a flat or sloped land.

Fin Garden, Kashan, Isfahan Province, Iran

As it was mentioned, the Iranian garden has a quadripartite arrangement; it means that the garden was divided into four sections by the water channels that ran through it. On the side of the water channels shading trees like Pine, Poplar and Cypress were planted to save the passing areas from the sun and heat. Each of the four sections created a small garden that were filled with fruit trees and flowers. At the cross axis where the vertical watercourse reached the horizontal one, an artificial pond was made and just next to it, a Pavilion was constructed. If the garden has a flat setting, the cross axes and pavilion are made in the middle of the garden; but if it has slope then the garden will have a tripartite plan and the cross axes and pavilion are placed in the upper one-third of the garden adding to the garden’s length by creating optical illusion.

Naturally, passage of time caused changes to the original plan used in the Achaemenid time. Adding bathhouses to the construct, adding servants sections, changing the usual trees and the omission of pavilion (in Safavid era) are the most notable of these changes. The local social currents and ruler’s taste influenced how a garden would turn out until the Qajar Era, when the slightly changed Iranian Garden was remodeled based on the European Gardens. The small flower mounds, the bordering of passages with boxwoods, the shaping of trees and the use of statues are all the legacy of Qajar. They were not the first to make changes in the Garden but they were the first to make so many changes.

In general, surrounding walls, watercourses that ran through the garden, the portal entrance, the pavilion and all the shading and fruit trees are the main parts of a Iranian Garden.

In 2011, UNESCO registered the combination of nine Iranian gardens as a World Heritage which are as follows:

1. Garden of Pasargadae, Fars Province
2. Chehel Sotoun, Isfahan, Isfahan Province
3. Fin Garden, Kashan, Isfahan Province
4. Eram Garden, Shiraz, Fars Province
5. Shazdeh Garden, Mahan, Kerman Province
6. Dowlat Abad Garden, Yazd, Yazd Province
7. Abbas Abad Garden, Abbas Abad, Mazandaran Province
8. Akbarieh Garden, Birjand, South Khorasan Province
9. Pahlavanpur Garden, Mehriz, Yazd Province

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The mausoleum of this great poet that had a tragic death in poverty was made of the finest stones of the time from marble and with the design of the great architect Hossein Lorzadeh. A variety of reasons led to the subsidence of the massive and heavy construct. In 1964, when all the repairing and restorations proved to be futile, the mausoleum was destroyed and replaced with a new monument with stronger foundation.

When Ferdousi died, his body wasn’t buried in the burial ground of the city since he was a Shiite, so he was buried in his garden somewhere near Toos. His grand position in the society attracted many intellectuals to the place. Several times a monument was built over his grave, which each time it was destroyed until in Qajar time, Naser Al Din Shah that heard the situation of the poet’s tomb ordered the construction of a new place over the ruins of the previous one.

Years later, after the World War I, when a sense of nationalism took over the country, Ferdousi became more important than ever. When it was understood that from the Qajar construct just a series of walls and a platform is remained, a collective collaboration was formed to gather enough money to rebuild the mausoleum. With the donations of people, a pyramid shaped tomb was designed that later were rejected for being foreign and was replaced with a design inspired by Pasargadae, Cyrus the Great’s tomb.

It did not take long for the construct to show signs of subsidence for the construction mistakes of the production team, which forced them to demolish and remake the whole construct. The 900 m2 land was dig about 5 m to be used as the foundation of the mausoleum. 24 pillars carry the weight of the first floor and eight pillars carry the weight of the second one. The whole construct follows the traditions of Achaemenian Architecture. Today the construct is a cube made of cement and iron with a marble façade that some lines from Shah Nameh, Ferdousi’s masterpiece, is carved on it.

In 1964, following a sense of nationality that took the society, people donated money to be used in constructing a mausoleum for the great epic poet Ferdowsi that many consider the reason behind the survival of Farsi language after the invasion of Arabs. The mausoleum was inspired by the tomb of Cyrus the Great which proves the importance of the Poet.

The complex where the tomb is part of, includes other sections such as museum and library as well. Adding the importance of the poet himself to the beauty of architecture and the surrounding garden, it is easily understood why the mausoleum is one of the top tourist attractions of Khorasan Razavi.

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Pasargadae was the earliest capital of the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great (600 – 530 BCE) who had ordered its construction. Pasargadae was the capital of the Achaemenid dynasty until Cambyses II (559 – 522 BCE) moved it to Susa. The site covers 1.6 square kilometers and includes the Mausoleum of Cyrus II, two royal palaces with gardens, and forts of Tall-e Takht.

The most prominent monument in Pasargadae complex is the tomb of Cyrus. The tomb’s height reaches almost eleven meters consisting of two main parts; a high plinth composed of six receding steps similar to Mesopotamian or Elamite ziggurats, and a tomb chamber with a steep-pitched gable roof resembling Urartu tombs of an earlier period. The main decoration on the tomb is a rosette design over the main entrance door.

Two royal palaces of Cyrus; residential Palace P and audience Palace S put revolutionary impacts on the architectural history of the ancient Near East. While a single-focal axis was dominated in the region for millennia, a symmetric four-sided structure with no principal axis and no fixed focal point was introduced in Pasargadae’s palaces. This structure is considered as the prototype of Persian Gardens. The superb technical application of elements of Lydo-Ionian stone-working including anathyrosis joints was also another architectural revolution in the area. Before then, columned halls were built with mud-brick walls and wood columns.

Audience Palace S consists of a central rectangular columned hall with two rows of four columns, each wall opening to a portico. The plan of Palace P resembles Palace S, the latter has more but smaller columns supported by exceptionally finely-made, horizontally- fluted tori on black and white plinths.

Discovered Inscriptions in Pasargadae are written in Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian cuneiform. Cyrus had introduced himself in one of the inscriptions, but since the Old Persian cuneiform was invented in the reign of Darius, researchers suggest that Darius completed several elements of Cyrus’ unfinished constructions purportedly to tie himself to the heritage of Cyrus. Located at the eastern edge of the Palace, Gate R is visible with a three-meter carved human figure with wings inspired by Assyrian sculpture.

The fortified and solid stone-made platform of Tall-e Takht (or Takht-e Madar-e Soleyman, the Throne of the Mother of Solomon) was built on a massive hill. A fourteen-meter high tower built almost exclusively of finely cut blocks of white limestone known as Zendan-e Soleyman (Solomon’s Prison) was also located in the north of the palaces. Sacred area, Tangeh Bolaghi, and Mozaffari caravanserai (Islamic era) are among other key constituents of the Pasargadae.

This work was globally registered in 2004.

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