Recognition Farahabad Jahan-Nama Garden Based on Archaeological Evidence and Historical Indications

Persian garden is the richest man-made landscape in Iran. Despite its long history, it has many unknown aspects and requires a deeper investigation; identifying the land patterns in different regions of the country will have a prominent contribution to the investigation of the Iranian gardens. The present study attempts to identify the land pattern of the garden and considers the impact of the natural environment on its layout, and reviews and introduces one of the gardens in Mazandaran belonging to the Safavid era called Jahan-Nama Garden of Farahabad. It also seeks to answer this question centering on how the presence of a river as a natural element on the edge of the garden can have impact on the geometry, layout and placement of its different elements. The central research questions are: How was the structure pattern of Jahan-Nama Garden? How did the landscape elements affect the layout of Jahan-Nama Garden? The present study hypothesizes that Jahan-Nama Garden can be categorized as kind of Persian garden called the riparian garden. Due to being close to the river, its main building was constructed close to the garden wall and river bank to have the best view toward the surrounding natural environment. Thus, this study introduces an unknown pattern of Persian garden called the riparian garden. The present study uses a cross-sectional/descriptive-analytical method. In the description phase, the written documents including texts and travelogues and visual evidence including photos and paintings are investigated. These descriptions that provide some information about the gardens situation during its survival and afterwards show that the garden has changed a lot due to continuous erosion caused by natural factors or human aggressions. The garden area and its major buildings were utterly destructed or buried except for some walls. In the next stage, the garden features are identified through analyzing and evaluating the historical data and the maps of the current situation, aerial photos and the latest findings from the archeological excavations; then, the findings are compared to other samples of the Iranian gardens. In order to prove this hypothesis, the internal garden features have been studied and compared to the principles of the Iranian garden in terms of the structure, vision and landscape, vegetation and water supply. The rectangular area surrounded by the river was private garden with a four-part geometry and perpendicular axes. The river was considered as the natural litter of the garden. The findings obtained from the architectural elements show that the main building was built with a complete four-direction view of the river and sketched through it by a columned porch to maintain its close relationship with the nature. The analysis and drawing of the investigated parts of the garden along with the historical documents and principles of the Iranian gardens show that the internal garden has a four-part pattern structure and the main palace was expected to be at the intersection of the main axes. However, given the importance of the river and its impact on the view of the palace, the main building was moved along with the East-west side of the river to take benefit from the relevant axis and the river and sea perspectives. This model in which the main building was constructed tangent to the river in order to have the best view and the whole garden was formed along with the river can be called the riparian pattern of the Persian Garden. In Jahan-Nama Garden, the optimal use of the river view created a new variant form of garden that changed the position of the palace in the garden so that the palace was located neither at the intersection of the two axes, nor at the end of the entrance road to the palace garden which usually leads to a palace.