Resumen de Changes in the philosophy of garden architecture in the 20th century and their impact upon the social and spatial environment
Gert Groening, Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn
Quite early in their existence on earth humans have cultivated gardens. For a long period, tradition tells us only about gardens of the ruling classes (see Olck 1910). We have learned about early gardens in Mesopotamia, the "hanging gardens" in Babylon being created two thousand years or even more before Christ. We find notions of Syrian and Palestinian gardens in the Bible. The Persians had large gardens with roses and so-called "wild gardens" which were called "pairidaeza", where the word paradise comes from. The Indians and the Chinese have a long-standing tradition in garden philosophy, which is hardly understood yet (see Beuchert 1983; Plaks 1976). The Greeks are said to have created the first gardens for school and academic purposes. The Romans established parks and gardens and many of the Renaissance gardens in Italy still attract hundreds of thousands of visitors today. Only recently Conan (1986) pointed to the significance gardens had in the everyday life of ancient Rome. Much later in France a classical garden developed and an international exchange of garden designs took place all over Europe.
