This event has been postponed. 

The Culture of Islamic Gardens

Gardens – not just in Japan, but across the globe — are an art form that transcends national boundaries, religious divides and time to help people connect to nature. Listen and take part in the discussion as a noted scholar explains the history and tradition of the gardens of Islam and what gardens tell us about a civilization and its relationship to things like nature, spirituality, art, architecture, water, and land. This talk is part of the Garden’s Year of Peace programming, celebrating the ability of gardens to connect people across borders, religions, and time.

This lecture is approved for 1 hour of LA CES continuing education credit by the American Society of Landscape Architects and 1.5 hours of continuing education credit by the Association of Professional Landscape Designers. Please remember to sign the sign-in sheet at the event to confirm your attendance if you are claiming credit.

About D. Fairchild Ruggles

Fairchild Ruggles is Professor and the Debra Mitchell Chair in Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with additional appointments in Art History, Architecture, Medieval Studies, Spanish & Portuguese Studies, and the Center for South Asian and Middle East Studies. An international authority on Islamic art and architectural history, she has written two award-winning books on Islamic garden history–Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain (2000) and Islamic Gardens and Landscapes (2008)–as well as eleven other authored, edited and co-edited volumes on Islamic art, cultural heritage, landscape history and theory, and the arts patronage of women in the Islamic world and South Asia. Her studies have taken her to Spain, India, Iran, Egypt, and most recently Cyprus where she explores everything from grand ceremonial gardens, to vernacular ways of irrigating the working landscape.

The Garden+ lecture series places the Japanese garden in bold and inspiring new contexts by bringing designers, authors, practitioners, and researchers to the Garden to share fresh ideas.  Come experience original perspectives, thought-provoking research, and new creative work. We bring presenters from around the globe to shed new light on how gardens connect to subjects as diverse as spirituality, technical innovation, architecture, culture, design, and society — all made more resonant with the  Garden itself as a backdrop. Garden+ is a presentation of the Japanese Garden Training Center, which is supported by the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.