Wondrous Worlds Lecture

From Mughal India to Nasrid Spain, Islamic gardens were historically shaped by geometry, water, abstract ornament, color, and viewsheds. In a lecture titled "Reflections of the Past in Modern Islamic Gardens," D. Fairchild Ruggles, Debra Mitchell Chair in Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, discusses ways in which that historic tradition is ongoing as modern interpretations use the same array of elements, sometimes quoting past gardens, sometimes reinvesting the forms with new meaning.