Persian gardens

Conference by Gaëtane Lamarche-Vadel (in French)

A garden in a desert is an oxymoron. So are Persian gardens - which, along with the gardens of Babylon, mark the origin of gardens.
We have chosen a number of linguistic, architectural and poetic approaches to these gardens, which have multiple dimensions: archaeological, geographical, agricultural, civilizational and ecological.

These terms are :
Pairadezza (paradise)
Kanat (underground water conveyance canal)
Chahâr bâgh (four gardens: the plan)
Mirror and reflections (materiality and immateriality)
The rose in all its states

Gaëtane Lamarche-Vadel, essayist, research associate at ACTE Aesthetica, Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne. She has taught aesthetic philosophy at ENSA Dijon and Paris 8. Her research into the diverse arrangements of artistic creations in urban and landscape spaces has been published in numerous books and articles. During trips to Iran (2008-2022), she rediscovered the “paradises” she had left behind in Florence and studied in Les jardins secrets de la Renaissance italienne (1997). She then devoted several years (2008-2022) to a sensitive and conceptual exploration of these gardens, published under the title Jardins persans, une traversée architecturale et philosophique (2025).