A Seminar on Mughal Gardens and Landscapes

A special seminar with Prof Jan Haenraets of Boston University.

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.

Selected examples are explored to illustrate the evolution of the Mughal garden typology, phased developments, design components, horticulture and water systems, and gardens on the Mughal roads. The seminar looks at examples of pre-Mughal layers and appropriation by the Mughals. Places throughout the empire are studies, with close attention paid to the Mughal landscape in Kashmir.

The seminar reflects on post-Mughal dereliction and adaptation, recent approaches towards conservation, raising awareness of the Mughal landscape heritage, and the place of this legacy in contemporary cities. The seminar combines lecture format introductions with critical and analytical conversations and reflections.

Jan Haenraets is a landscape architect and teaches at the Preservation Studies Program at Boston University. He is a co-founder of Atelier Anonymous-Global Landscape Foundation, Vancouver, BC. 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.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 20th May 2024