page_title: Riad (architecture)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Riad (architecture) / History
caption_attribution_description: Our hotel in Fez
context_page_description: A riad is a type of traditional Moroccan or Moorish interior garden or courtyard associated with house and palace architecture. The term is nowadays often used in Morocco to refer to a hotel or guest house-style accommodation with shared common areas and private rooms, often within a restored traditional mansion.
context_section_description: The term riad originates from the Arabic term for garden, Arabic: رياض‎ (riyad). Historically, the term referred to a common but specific type of interior garden: one that is symmetrically divided into four parts along its central axes and typically has a fountain at its middle. 
  Riad architecture ultimately has ancient roots in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern domestic architecture. Houses centered around inner courtyards existed across the ancient Greco-Roman world and, before that, in the ancient Middle East. Interior gardens are also an ancient feature of domestic architecture in the Middle East, and the geometrically arranged gardens of Islamic architecture derive from Iranian civilization in particular. Archaeological remains of similar gardens have been found in and around ancient Mesopotamia, and the evolution of such gardens can be found in the grand geometrically-arranged gardens of later Iranian and Indian architecture, known as chahar bagh.
  In addition to the existing influences of Greco-Roman culture in the Mediterranean, the formation of the Islamic world after the 7th century also spread and established these architectural models across the region and all the way to al-Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula. The ancient Roman city of Volubilis also provided reference for the beginnings of riad architecture during the Idrisid Dynasty in Morocco. Interior gardens were a popular feature of palace architecture in the Islamic world because water and greenery were associated with images of paradise in Islam. Prominent examples in al-Andalus (Spain under Muslim rule) were found at Madinat al-Zahra, the Aljaferia, and the Alhambra. When the Almoravids conquered al-Andalus in the 11th century they sent Muslim, Christian and Jewish artisans from al-Andalus to Morocco to work on monuments. The earliest known example of a true riad garden (with a symmetrical four-part division) in Morocco was found in the Almoravid palace built by Ali ibn Yusuf in Marrakesh in the early 12th century. The era of the Almoravids and their successor dynasties (such as the Almohads, the Marinids, and the Nasrids) was a formative period of Moroccan architecture and of wider Moorish architecture during which the model of the riad garden was perfected and established as a standard feature of interior secular or palace architecture in the region. It was particularly successful and common in Marrakesh, where the combination of climate and available space made it well-suited to the architecture of the bourgeois mansions and royal palaces built throughout the city's history.
caption: Dar Roumana, one of many historic mansions in Fes. Although it follows the model of a Moroccan courtyard house, it does not have a garden like a true riad.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Our hotel in Fez", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 30D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.0 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2015:07:03 11:43:47", "Image Artist": "Mike Prince", "Image Copyright": "\u00a9 Mike Prince", "Image ExifOffset": "16288", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "878", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "15259", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:04:30 14:17:53", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:04:30 19:47:53", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "870723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "415241/62500", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "17", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "233600/59", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "233600/59", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF CameraOwnerName": "unknown", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "530408089", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[17, 85, 0/0, 0/0]", "EXIF LensModel": "EF-S17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM"}