MADRID, JUNE 24 – An Andalusian Garden restoring the plant species used in Islamic Spain has been inaugurated by Morocco’s King Mohamed VI in Rabat’s Botanical Gardens. The ceremony, said the Foundation of Islamic Culture (FUNCI) in Madrid, was attended by numerous high-level figures in Morocco, and a renovated Neo-Moorish pavilion was also unveiled holding the ‘Al Andalus, A Culture of Water’ exhibition.
The Jardin d’Essais Botaniques (JEB) of Rabat is a recently-restored 17 hectare botanic garden created by Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier at the beginning of the 20th century.
It is located in the heart of historic Rabat – named UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012 – and was conceived as an experimental garden to acclimatize diverse plant species through a partnership with the National Institute of Agronomic Research of Morocco (INRA). It is part of the Med-O-Med botanical gardens network.
The garden holds over 650 species of economic interest for agronomy and garden development, and is in constant growth. An Andalusian Garden has been created in the centre of this island of greenery which brings back the plants used in Islamic Spain as well as the irrigation system and the gardening philosophy of that era, with a garden surrounded by walls and arches reminiscent of the architectonic elements of the ancient Al Andalus. The project also included the renovation of a Neo-Moorish recreational pavilion from the early 20th century which has been restored by FUNCI. It will be used for cultural and pedagogical activities and is where the ‘Al Andalus, a Culture of Water’ exhibition was inaugurated. The exhibition is based in the contents of the book ‘The Enigma of Water in Al-Andalus’ by Cherif Abderrahman Jah, which deals with diverse topics such as the scientific point of view of the water as a unique element in nature, its symbolism in the main cultures of antiquity and its profound significance regarding the Koranic and spiritual vision.
The exhibition was designed by the Spanish architect Miguel Ripoll and shows the social perspective of water in Al Andalus and its contribution to development. Using an interdisciplinary approach, it showcases the extraordinary progress made in the era of Islamic Spain in the field of water infrastructure and the importance of water in the architecture of gardens and in the shaping of the agricultural landscape, of which the Iberian peninsula still shows substantial traces. The Andalusian gardens and the restoration of the Neo-Moorish pavilion – o minzah – were sponsored by the Rabat administration in collaboration with the Rabat Sale-Zemmour-Zaer regional government and carried out by the Spanish architect Antonio Almagro Gorbea from the Arab Studies School of the National Rsearch Centre (CSIC) and the agronomist Esteban Hernandez-Bermejo from the University of Cordoba, the designer of the Rabat Botanical Gardens project.
