With the cooperation of the Royal Botanical Garden of Cordoba, Casa Árabe invites you to this conference given by José Tito Rojo, conservator of the Botanical Garden of the University of Granada. For yet another year, Casa Árabe is taking part in the Cordoba Festival of Patios, held in the city from May 2-15, as a non-competing participant.

The culture of Al-Andalus assigned great importance to gardens, leaving testimony of this behind for us in countless chronicles and poems. We are also lucky to have received a few extraordinarily well-preserved, living examples of these gardens in our day, at sites which have never ceased to be gardens. In recent times, research has been performed on them, allowing us to get a good idea of what they were originally like and how they have evolved throughout history. This intervention is an attempt to explain the current knowledge existing on the gardens of Al-Andalus, describing their characteristics while showing their diversity and the types of gardens which existed. Information will also be provided on their unique features, analyzing their different meanings and determining connections with preceding types of gardens, especially the Islamic gardens of the East and those in classical Rome.

José Tito Rojo is the conservator of the Botanical Garden at the University of Granada and a landscape artist who specializes in restoring historical gardens. As a researcher, he has placed a special emphasis on the gardens of Al-Andalus and their influence on modern Spanish landscaping. He has a PhD from the University of Granada, where he works as the conservator of the Botanical Garden. Likewise, he is a member of the International Scientific Committee of Cultural Landscapes of the ICOMOS and of the Scientific Committee of the Fondazione Benetton Studi e Ricerche. Some of his notable recent works are: “Modernity and Regionalism in the Gardens of Spain  (1850-1936): From Radical Opposition to Misunderstood Synthesis” (Studies in the History of Art, 2015); I grandi bacini d’acqua nell’Occidente musulmano: funzione, evoluzione, restauro. A proposito della Favara (co-published by Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche/Antiga Edizioni, 2015). Amongst the collective works to which he has contributed, we would highlight: Jardín y paisaje. Miradas cruzadas (Garden and Landscape: Crossing glances, Abada, 2011, with Juan Calatrava); El jardín hispanomusulmán: Los jardines de al-Andalus y su herencia (The Spanish-Muslim Garden: The gardens of Al-Andalus and their legacy, Editorial Universidad de Granada, 2012, Manuel Casares-Porcel); and “Las tipologías de los jardines de la Alhambra en el siglo XIX a la luz de la fotografía” (The Types of Gardens in the Alhambra of the Nineteenth Century in the Light of Photography, Cuadernos de la Alhambra, 2013, along with Manuel Casares-Porcel).