Abstract of the thesis

War has been undesirable social evidence in all cultures; nevertheless it has been occurred in all historical periods of the world. Wars cause the emergence of values in the context of society. Honoring the values and national glories or preserving of cultural-historical heritage, along with the effort to preserve the memory of war and martyrs, have caused the advent of war memorial gardens. Iran’s 8 years of defense was full of profound cultural and value concepts, which provided good contexts for the cultural progress and excellence of the society. Evoking values, concepts, memories and events of the war period in the memorial garden would not be possible other than through symbolism. Our 8 years of defense was a sacred battle in a sense that it took place for sacred values of people. Therefore, the design of memorial garden-museum as a sacred art, also deals with sacred symbols and signs. During the war years and afterwards, Art has had an important role in explaining the deep values and meaning of the sacred defense. Therefore in this thesis, the fundamentals chapter deals with the influences of war on the art (art as the definite truth in any culture); including Literature (poetry and memory), painting, photography, filmmaking, architecture and gardening.

The case study for this thesis is a hill located in the entrance of Tabriz city; which due to its situation in the city, and other prominent cultural ecological characteristics, was chosen to become a memorial garden. Macro identification studies for Tabriz (including: environmental, physical, historical, cultural and socio-economic studies) were conducted based on the available records, documents, reports and publications.

In the hill identification section, considering that since 73, the hill was intended for the construction of a garden museum for the sacred defense, over the years it has gradually gone through changes in a way that in the present circumstances the ecological structure of the hill is in danger. Therefore in the hill identification chapter, references are made to its first structure back in 60s, so that through the identification and analysis of the primary structure of the hill, and through the comparison made with the current situation, the ecological conditions could be mended and the coherence between the compartments of the hill could be achieved through design. Micro scale identification and analysis of the area was conducted based on the environmental, physical, cultural, sociological studies and landscape architectural studies (based on the subjective method). In this part, existing records and documents of the hill, maps and aerial images, pictures and subjective-on site observations were used.

After conducting the identification and analysis studies, while taking into account the results of the fundamentals chapter, conceptualization is done, sketches and basic lines are drawn, and then the physical plan based on the study of the sacred defense’ principles is prepared. Physical and conceptual features of each space are presented in tables, and after the conceptual analysis of the hill, each one of the proposed spaces is located, and at the end by overlaying the prepared layers, the technical plan of the project is presented. As for the planting design, native plants compatible with the area’s climate and soil along with their mental, conceptual and symbolic characteristics are collected and reviewed and then species suitable for the physical-mental structure of each space are determined.

Thereupon, the results of this research are as following: applying mental and cognitive concepts of natural-physical elements, to evoke values of war particularly values and concepts of sacred defense, through environmental design.