Aesthetics of Irrigation in Islamic Cordoba

L.A. Lecture
Wednesday, October 17 @ 4:00 p.m.
Cook Campus Center Rm. 110

Between Landscape and Architecture: The Aesthetics of Irrigation in Islamic Cordoba (Spain) 
Professor D. Fairchild Ruggles 

Irrigation is a practical strategy to mitigate the lack of water. But in much of the Islamic Middle East, it also became an integral part of the garden’s form. In Islamic Spain—home to some of the most important historic Islamic gardens—both gardens and buildings were made with water management in mind. These were so successful that a thousand years later, even with the availability of modern water supplies, the traditional catchment systems still produce water and their sustainable logic can be observed.

Professor D. Fairchild Ruggles is an internationally known landscape historian who specializes in the Islamic Mediterranean and South Asia. She is the author of the award-winning books Islamic Gardens and Landscapes (2008) and Gardens, Landscape and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain and has edited or co-edited five others. To learn more about Professor Ruggles see: http://www.landarch.illinois.edu/people/faculty/ruggles/ruggles.aspx