Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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Chahar-Baghis oneof the most famousstreetsof Isfahan and perhaps,Iran.Chahar-Bagh, as agreenstreet, had a certaingeometric pattern which included the rowsof trees, roads,sidewalks and central stream.Chahar-Bagh Street was actually a lineal urban space which stretched from the north to the south, towards Naghsh Jahan square (EmamSquare) as the central urban space of Esfahan and together managed to form and organize the structure of the new Safiavidpart of Isfahan beside the oldSeljuk part of Isfahan. Chahar-BaghStreet of Isfahancould not be considered as the first special green urban street,northe last one.Because it is known that during the early Safavid period, a type of Chahar-BaghStreetwas builtin the city of Qazvin and during late Safavid period, several Chahar-BaghStreets were organized in some cities such as Mashhad, Shiraz, Tabriz and Tehran.Chahar-Bagh Street along with the Naghsh-Jahan urban square was also repeatedafter Safavid time,as a new,valuable and static model for the urban design,in the design ofotherimportantcities.Chahar-Bagh was not onlya particularstreet, but also ageometricpattern garden design, or in other words, it is well-known as a comprehensivemodel or patternofPersian garden design. This pattern divides the garden site or ground in four parts and shapes a cross road between these parts, placing a pavilionin the middle of the cross road. There are very different and opposites viewpoints about the geometric pattern ofChahar-Bagh, such asi) Chahar- Baghpattern is thecomprehensive design of Persian Garden.ii) Chahar- Baghpattern is just one of the kinds of Persian Garden design.iii) Chahar- Baghpattern is just the same as thequartier shape of design.iv) Chahar- Bagh pattern is not due to four partial forms and it only contains the symbolic and memorial aspects of design. This paper will try to penetrate the literal origins of Chahar-Bagh word and discover the practicalmeaning of Chahar-Bagh during the studied centuries, therefore, this paper is specialized only on thelexicaland semantic aspects of Chahar-Bagh and it begins withthe following questions: 1) How deep is the meaning of Chahar-Baghin our culture? 2) What are the background and the function ofChahar-Bagh during our historical resources? This paper studies Chahar-Bagh by gathering thedescriptive dataintwo field of the meaning and function, on the basis of historical evidences.Then, organizes them in diagrams and presents research analysis based on the mentioned findings. The meaning of Chahar-Bagh includes outer and inneraspects and also createsa meaningful complexity.The inner meanings includes words such as: Chahar (four), Char (four),Bagh (garden),Pardis (paradise). The outer meanings includes three sections: Chahar-Bagh and the dictionary meanings,Chahar-Bagh and the symbolic and idealistic meanings, and finally,Chahar-Bagh and the practical meanings. The origin of Chahar-Bagh as a street form might refer to the city of Samarkand during the Timuridperiod. This city was built between Firoozi gate and Del-Gosha royal garden. The origin of Chahar-Bagh as a garden form, on the other hand,is addressed to the city of Pasargadae during the early Achaemenid time. Pasargadae included several complexes such as the fortress, the tomb of Cyrus the great, palaces and gardens and the fire temple.The historicalsourcesindicatethat the origin ofChahar-Baghword is related to Seljuk time and used in “Jame-ol-Tavarich” by “Khaje Rashid aldinFazlollahHamadani”. There were some places as Chahar-Baghbeforethe Safavid period and themostpracticalmeaning of ChaharBaghwas “the rulergarden”and also as a “citadel garden” and ‘the officialcenter”. There was also a new meaning extended for Chahar-Bagh during the Safavid time, at the time when Isfahan was chosen as the capital city of Iran. This meaning indicted Chahar-Bagh asan especial, green, urban street. According to historicalevidences,thestructurofChahar-Bagh hadanautogamy(private) aspect at first, butover time the public aspect was grownand the urbanaspectexpanded. The resources shows that thestructure also had an earthlyand terrestrial aspect and was changed into the heavenly and idealisticaspectduring the time. ChaharBaghwas neverasimple garden or anordinary ruler place or justasimple street, and thementioned meaning of Chahar-Bagh duringthe Safavid period is a strong evidence of this statement. AlthoughChahar-Baghcontains the literal meaning of “four gardens”,yet, Chahar-Bagh term meant a special,great, public,spiritual, celestial and heavenly place or garden.It is very surprisingthatjustoneword could indicate all meanings and functions in Persian architecture and all of the mentioned meanings could be compacted in one word. Perhapsitrepresentsthemagicaland mysticalPersian architectural secret, which is known as "unity”through“diversity".

Keywords: Chahar-Bagh, Persian Street, Isfahan Architecture, SafavidCity, Persian garden.

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