Chihil Sutun, Kabul

The Chihil Sutun palace, whose name means Forty Pillars, stands amid gardens on the southern edge of Kabul, a nineteenth-century royal residence built by the ruling dynasty as a summer retreat. Set among orchards and watercourses in the traditional Persianate garden style, it combined administrative use with pleasure grounds and hosted important events in the city's history. War left the palace in ruins, and it has been a focus of restoration efforts to recover both the building and its landscaped setting.