Garden is a delighting place that Persians has thought of making and designing it from a long time ago. A lot of known historians have introduced Persians as the first creators of gardens. In an Avestan book archeologists have found a document offering designing the gardens in Persian style was used in this land about 5000-7000 years ago, thousand years before the Japanese and English gardens.
If Persians are not the first, but without any doubt they are from the first garden maker nations who reached to a national designing style and taught their foundations to other nations.
The word of "Paradaez" in Medes language meant a place which is full of pleasent aromas and then in Pahlavi and Dari persian language changed to "Pardis" which is still used in Parsi language for word of "Garden" or "Heaven". Today this word in Greek language is called "Paradeisos" and in French and English it is called "Paradis" and "Paradise" which means heaven.
Will Durant in The story of civilization writes, "Other nations like Indians and after thousand years, Arab Muslims started imitating designing their gardens very similar to this style. After that medieval Europeans were inspired from these gardens to shape their own style." The Hanging gardens of Babylon ruins, Alhambra in Spain and Taj Mahal in India (which is made by a Persian Architect) are the obvious reasons of this influence.
The most important characteristic of Persian garden which distinguishes it easily from other types is the very regular and stable geometric plan (cause of having the most amount of earthquakes in whole Asia) and compositions of the central pool which reflects the picture of house and trees and plants around in a symmetric shape that is due to a Pre-Islamic belief on purity of water, importance of images in the material world and idealism, the geometric divisions of square and rectangle (signs of the holly Indo-Iranian/Aryan Swastika and their belief in four fundamental elements of the earth; Water, Wind, Sand and Fire), building the garden in an inclined ground, making small water falls which refers the short life of human, applying the autumn and always green plants at the same time, and using the fruit trees, medical herbal plants and various types of roses the most.
There are also some earlier samples of using central pools and fourfold pattern in gardens of Pre-Islamic ages in Cyrus the Great palace called Apadana which shows the obvious signs of central pool in front of the building and a royal Persian garden in Achaemenid kingdom 2500 years ago that was found by the Scottish archeologist David Stronach.
Persian Pardis reflects a huge artistic and architectural delicacy which is the result of a very Asian/Persian look to the universe through thousand years experience and creativity. The total form of these gardens were continuously used in this land until Qajar kingdom 200 years ago and the influence of west which was finally lead to the contemporary living style and disappearing this garden making style in the civil engineering. Although these gardens are parts of history of Iran now but sometimes we can see their influence in the way of making small yard of houses in traditional style and also in the designs of Persian carpets which show the attachment between them and the gardens because the memory of Persian paradise still remains in minds of Iranian people. Maybe it’s the time for young Iranian artists and architects for more attempts to make their art with a new look at their national heritage and rich culture. That’s the way to get into modern life and still remain with a Persian identity.
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