A Seminar on Mughal Gardens and Landscapes

A special seminar with Prof Jan Haenraets of Boston University.

Date: 10th -12th June, 2024
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Venue: Level 2 of Bengal Institute, 45 Kemal Ataturk Avenue, Banani, Dhaka 1213
Faculty: Prof. Jan Haenraets, Boston University, U.S.A

The seminar will cover an introduction to the history of the sixteenth to eighteenth century Mughal gardens from Babur to Aurangzeb, within the context of the establishment and growth of the Mughal Empire. It takes a closer look at the era of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan when a peak in garden developments was achieved with a prime focus on landscape components.

Jan Haenraets is a landscape architect and teaches at the Preservation Studies Program at Boston University. His current research explores global approaches to historic landscape preservation, ecological sustainability, preservation of twentieth-century designed landscapes, and Mughal landscape heritage in Kashmir. He was a Fellow in Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University, where he researched the Mughal garden networks of Kashmir, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (AKPIA, MIT) He was the Head of Gardens and Designed Landscapes of the National Trust for Scotland and is an advisor to the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Jammu and Kashmir. He is a member of the Docomomo International Specialist Committee on Urbanism and Landscape.