theory lab lecture series

The Middle Ages have often been depicted as dark times of amnesia. But the truth of

the matter is, that this one thousand year span following the fall of the Roman Empire

produced very significant transformations in the landscape. Through successive inva-

sions, across Europe, Asia and Africa, different cultures confronted themselves with

conflicting understandings of society and of the divine nature of things. This is the

period when monasteries swarm across the primeval forests of Central and Northern

Europe creating new Christian settlements in forest clearings. This is the period when

Islam is born and spreads around the Mediterranean and all the way to the confines of

India and China in less than one hundred years. This is also when the rugged Vikings

raid down the coasts of Europe and create the splendid Islamo-Norman culture of

Sicily.

The Islamic garden of the Golden Age of Spain with its extraordinary mathematic

precision inherited from Ptolemaic and Babylonian times produces a degree of ab-

straction and design never attained before. The void in this instance, instead of being

simply empty, becomes a religious construct of extraordinary sophistication and

precision. Most walled gardens and cloisters of Feudal Europe during that same period

remain rustic approximations of previous Roman typologies, and have nothing to do

with the exquisite minimalism of Islam.

The medieval walled garden of Europe is literally associated with paradise and the

notion of the original sin of Adam and Eve. The garden is meant as a place of puri-

ty and meditation where Saint Francis comes to talk to the birds, and where love is

encountered on a strictly platonic level. The forest of Middle Ages acquires also a

strong symbolic transformation, and becomes the dynamic receptacle of extraordi-

nary cultural sociological developments. The word forest or “forst” stems from the

Latin word “foris” which literally means out of bounds. The forest is a place of outlaws

where lepers, hermits, prostitutes and robbers dwell and fight the Law of the kingdom

as well as the “monsters” of nature. The forest becomes the receptacle of primitive

beliefs and lore best illustrated in the tales of the Ring and Beowolf and in the gargo-

yle monsters of the gothic cathedrals. This is a period of great and prolonged conflict

between cultures, where the evil forces of nature and wilderness create confusion

and must also be tamed.

© Christophe Girot 2013

Landschaftsarchitektur HS 2013 Seite 01

Kairo, Grand mosque

St. Gallen, Cemetery and vegetable garden,ca. 830. In: Hennebo 1962

Orient and Occident. HS 2013 V05Gardens of the Middle Ages

www.girot.arch.ethz.ch

www.facebook.com/LandscapeArchitectureETHZurich

Literature:

Grabar, Oleg: La formation de l’art islamique, Paris 1987.

Bianca, Stefano: Hofhaus und Paradiesgarten. Architektur und Lebensformen in der islamischen Welt, München 1991.

Carroll-Spillecke, Maureen (ed.): Der Garten von der Antike bis zum Mittelalter, Mainz 1992.

Cazellas, Raymond/Rathofer, Johannes (ed.): Das Stundenbuch des Duc de Berry - Les très riches heures, Wiesbaden 2001.

Forkl, Hermann et al. (ed.): Die Gärten des Islam, Stuttgart 1993.

Grécy, Jules: Die Alhambra zu Granada, Worms 1990.

Hennebo, Dieter: Gärten des Mittelalters, In: Geschichte der deutschen Gartenkunst, Bd. 1, Hamburg 1962.

Moynihan, Elizabeth: Paradise as a Garden. In Persia and Mughal India, London 1980.

Petruccioli, Attilio (ed.): Der Islamische Garten, Stuttgart 1995.

Pregill, Philip/Volkman, Nancy: Landscapes in History, New York 1999.

Ruggles, Fairchild: Gardens, landscape and vision in the palaces of islamic Spain, University Park/Pennsylvania 2000.

Landschaftsarchitektur HS 2013 Seite 02

November mast of acorn, 15. century. In: Cazellas/Rathofer 2001

Garden of Paradise, 1410. Source: Museum Städel, Frankfurt