Great Charbagh (ETW building)
| Great Charbagh | |
|---|---|
| Category: | Culture |
| Level: | 2 |
| Turns to build: | 4 |
| Building cost: | 1500 |
| |
| Requires | |
 School of the Arts | |
| Enables | |
 Pavilion of Achievement | |
These formal gardens are a retreat from the hurly-burly of the everyday world, and a place where important guests can be entertained.
These are spaces where rulers, their important functionaries, ambassadors and the “great and good” can take their ease, enjoying the peace of shade, running water, natural beauty, and pleasant scents.
The design of Persian gardens influences the layout of a charbagh (the word itself has Persian origins), and the plants that are grown. The central idea is to reflect or recreate Paradise in an earthly setting, albeit with the limitations that humans always bring to their works. The garden is divided into four sections, each with its own reflecting pools, formalised streams and fountains, and carefully selected plantings. Water features are important because they represent the four rivers of Paradise. The plants carry symbolic meanings too, for those educated enough to “read” the garden, such as the cypress trees representing death. Often verses of sacred texts are carved into the stonework, or inlaid in wall tiles, as a further aid to contemplation.
The most famous charbagh in existence is probably best known for the tomb it contains: laid out in 1632, the gardens of the Taj Mahal in Agra, are a superb formal setting for any building.
This building can only be built in the faction capital.