History of Negarestan Garden Museum
Cultural-Historical Collection of Negarestan Garden Museum
The Negarestan Palace or Garden was built between 1843-1849 by the order of Fathali Shah Qajar, with the aim of creating a summer-government center outside Tehran city. Due to the existence of numerous paintings and drawings of Fathali Shah and his courtiers in various buildings, this garden became known as Negarestan.
This garden palace was very large in its early days. So that according to Qajar documents, its southern gate was located on the northern side of Baharestan Square and was led to Shemiran Gate from the east and from the west to Safi Ali Shah Street. But it should be acknowledged that Negarestan garden has been exposed to many destructions and only 11,469 square meters of it remains and it is owned by Tehran University. Magnificent mansions and halls such as Delgosha Mansion, Salam Hall, Qalamdan Hall and several reservoirs were built in this garden palace.
Negarestan Garden has seen many historical and political events, including the murder of Mirza Abulqasem Qaem Maqam Farahani by Mohammad Shah. In 1905, with the implementation of Nasereddin Shah's urban development plan, Negarestan Garden entered the city limits of Tehran, and with the decrease of its political importance, it became available to various cultural institutions.
During the reign of Muzaffar al-Din Shah, following Europe, the first Falahat School headed by Mr. "Dasher" and the Fine Arts Industrial School headed by the famous painter Mohammad Ghaffari "Kamal Al Mulk" were established in this place. In the year 1928, the Minister of Culture of Iran, Etimad al-Doulah Qaragozlu, considers Negarastan Garden as the permanent location of the High School. Then, the building plan of a high school, respecting the style of Iranian-Qajar architecture and the principles of school building, is executed by Nikolai Markov (a Russian refugee architect) on the northern side of Negarestan Garden. 164 rooms and two large halls were built in this complex.
In 1932, by changing its name to University, started training teachers for new schools in Iran. In 1936, another large building was built as a library in the northeast of Negarestan Garden, and Parvin Etsami, a famous poet, worked as the deputy of this library.
During more than half a century, a large number of scientific, literary and artistic personalities of the country such as Malek osh-Sho'arā Bahār, Kazem Assar, Ali Akbar Dehkhoda, Badiozzaman Forouzanfar, Ali Naqi Vaziri, Jalal Homaei, Saeed Nafisi, Ebrahim Pourdawood, Gholam Hossein Seddiqi, Parviz Khanlari, Mohammad Moein, Mohammad Ebrahim Bastani Parizi, Ali Mohammad Kardan and Mahmoud Hasabi have studied and taught in this historical collection.
On 18 June 1936, the statue of Abolqasem Ferdowsi (the famous Iranian poet 323-416 AH) was installed in front of the northern door of the university as the symbol of the Faculty of Literature, and the area around it became known as Ferdowsi Garden. This statue was made in bronze by Lorenzi (a famous French sculptor) on the occasion of celebrating Ferdowsi's millennium and with the financial help of students living in Europe and especially in France.
In 1924, the law of establishing the University of Tehran was approved by the National Council, and from 1946 onwards, some faculties and institutions were moved to the current location of Tehran University. Since 1956, Negarestan was assigned to the Dehkhoda Dictionary Institute, the Geography Institute, the Foreign Languages Institute, and the general classes of the Faculty of Literature and the Faculty of Social Sciences. In 1958, it was handed over to the Research Institute of Social Sciences and Cooperation due to the efforts of Dr. Gholam Hossein Seddiqi.
From 2013, after restoration and reconstruction, the gate of the garden was opened to the public under the supervision of the Cultural and Social Vice-Chancellor of the University of Tehran and was registered under the number 2082 among the national monuments of Iran.