Ecology is the science of environmental phenomena and their relations. It is a science that recognizes the environment as a collection of smaller systems which are in a meaningful relation to create a larger system. However, landscape is a combination of selections from this larger system and the observer’s perception. Its interpretation is a new thing alike a part of the facing ecosystem where “it” can be understood by human and clarify the “meaning” of outside for him. In this process, the ecosystem and the observer form a united indivisible set known as landscape. Human lives in “landscape”; not in the ecosystem that science introduces. Iranians have long had a special sensibility towards nature, which is likely to have geographical origins, that has made them ponder and give new interpretations of it once a while. The perpetual desire of close connection to nature has had a profound impression on art, architecture and cities created by Iranians. Wherever there may be an opening to nature, inevitably it will be; therefore, the Iranian architecture offers the creation of porch, the “viewing” element so that the plain be vividly observed from its frame. Thus, an observer standing on the porch can enjoy a frame he has chosen where the complex ecosystem of infinite relations can be viewed; and this view underlies an affiliation that will not be forgotten in Iranian minds. Hence, the ecosystem according to landscape is a specific cognition of it which displays the internal relations of the system. If we consider ecology as the science of ecosystem relations, it will be different from what is meant by science, according to landscape. Ayda Alehashemi’s frame on ecology of Alamout site, as viewed by an observer standing on the porch, clarifies the relation of landscape and ecology vividly. What this photo depicts is a landscape, in which the ecology of Alamout site lies.
)