Formation and Features of Tehran Urban Parks during the Reign of First Pahlavi Period, Case Study: Tehran National Garden (Baq-EMelli)

Urban Parks, as one of the main component of urban green spaces, have an important role in urban social life and cultural exchanges. Their importance in the process of sustainable development causes that they are considered as one of the most important indicators of community development. Although, green spaces in the shape of “garden” have an old history in Iranian culture since Achaemenian period, the modern concept of by the gardening styles of Europe and some gardens in Tehran were built according to these styles. Subsequently, construction of public green spaces in Iran cities at the reign of First Pahlavi, were emerged by some causes which led to change Iranian architecture and urbanism since the middle of Qajar dynasty (during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah-e Qajar). Interactions between Iran and European countries in this period, changed the concept and form of Garden in Iran and caused some gardens in Tehran to form according to the Western gardening styles. Since this period the word of “Park” was used for some of the private gardens which were designed according to the western gardening styles such as “Park-E Amino dole”, “Park-e Atabak” and “Park-e Zel ol Soltan”. However, the concept of urban parks in Iran had not been considered until the reign of First Pahlavi. The National Garden of Tehran (Baq-e-Melli), built in 1928, which is considered as therefore, for recognizing methods and styles of landscape architecture at the reign of First Pahlavi, it is important to identify the structure and features of this park as a tool to recognize methods and styles of landscape architecture at that time. The present paper focuses on visualizing the similarities between the properties of the National Garden of Tehran (Baq-e-Melli) and several different garden design styles. Main questions of this paper are as following: • What were the main factors in shaping the urban parks in the reign of First Pahlavi? • What were the main features of the National Garden of Tehran (Baq-e-Melli)? • Which styles of the landscape design did affect National Garden of Tehran (Baqe-Melli?) To gain these purposes, this paper studied external and internal factors which ultimately contribute to change gardening style in Iran at Qajar Period, such as changing of the concept and structure of “city”, increasing in public interest to public green spaces, and traveling of Iranians to European countries. Then, it studied the first parks which ware created in this period, including National Garden and Ferdowsi Garden of Tehran. This paper used historic documents for recognition the feathers of National Garden of Tehran. This paper used historic documents for recognition the feathers of National Garden of Tehran. At last, the study compared the style of National Garden with different gardening styles. This research is a case study as well as a qualitative one. It is based on the Grounded Theory method. The information gathering is based on Library Research method. The results of this study show that the National Garden of Tehran was more influenced by the Baroque garden than other styles. Several properties of National Garden of Tehran, such as geometry and axes, decoration, order, and nature and its elements are close to the Baroque garden style. This shows that the National Garden of Tehran has the greatest similarity to the Industrial Revolution public park regarding to the function and relationship with the city and environment. In addition, considering the architectural and artistic elements, the National Garden (Baq-e-Melli) of Tehran is quite similar to the Persian garden and the Baroque Garden. This park, as the first park of Iran, is desined according to western gardening styles rather than Iranian traditional gardening style. Also, the primitive urban park in Tehran and Iran were influenced by Western styles of landscape architecture.