The Qajar dynasty (1785 to 1925), created a series of royal gardens ringing Tehran. In 1925, with the rise of the Pahlavi regime, the majority of the Qajar gardens were deliberately destroyed or converted into military bases. A few, such as the Golestan garden, were partly preserved. During the Reza Shah’s reign, in order to bring about a more secular and Western-influenced future, the life of the Golestan garden was faced by the mass destruction of outmoded buildings, and the denigration of religious rituals. After the fall of the Monarchy and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, the royal gardens met a different fate, due to the various ideological concepts of the new regime. Through the selection of Golestan garden as a case study, this paper narrates the transformations which have taken place in the material and symbolic dimensions of the royal gardens in twentieth-century Iran.

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