Chinese gardens

Chinese Gardens
-Tanisha Agarwal
B.Arch/10003/14

Introduction
• At the beginning of eastern civilization a form of religion based on
animist beliefs developed.
• The mountains, sky, seas, rivers and rocks were materialized spirits to be
honoured.
• From this background a Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, began to teach
Taoism which taught people to integrate themselves with the rhythms
of life.
• This resulted in the importance of good manners towards nature and
human beings.

Concept
• The Taoist beliefs led Chinese to take much
pleasure in the calming landscapes of their
natural environment and eventually
emulate these scenes so they were closer
to hand.
• This was achieved through the creation of
landscape paintings to view or by creating
imitation landscapes some of which were
on a very large scale.
A stone sculpture of
Lao Tzu, located
north of Quanzhou
at the foot of Mount
Qingyuan.

Geographical Influence
• The most impressive feature of China is that it is endowed with a
diverse natural landscape.
• Eighty-five percent of China is markedly mountainous. The five famous
holy mountains – Hua mountain, Tai mountain, North Heng mountain,
South Heng mountain and Sung mountain symbolize the centre of the
earth and its four corners. These mountains frequently appear in
Chinese landscape art.
• China is also traversed by three of the world’s greatest rivers. – the
Yellow River (Huang He), the Yangtse River (Chang Jian), and the West
River (Hsi He).
• They rise in the central area of the China and flow east into the Pacific,
splitting into myriad small streams and several great lakes.
• The third feature of China’s physical context is its distinct regional
variation in climate.
• The abundance and beauty of the natural landscape resources
originated and nurtured Chinese art, as well as Chinese gardens and
Chinese architecture.

Design Philosophy
• Chinese garden may be viewed as a miniature of the Chinese landscape.
• Nature is loved and held in highest honour in Chinese art, but this does not
mean that the nature must be simply “duplicated” in its original form.
• The main principle of Chinese garden art is to recreate nature, to present its
essence without an artificial effect.
• The recreation must be based on profound observation and a deep
understanding of the nature.
• The design of Chinese garden is a process of abstraction and stylization of
the existing landscape.
• The aim of creating a natural form in Chinese garden is to celebrate the
human spirit.

Characteristics of Design
• In the Chinese garden, the garden scenes are concealed inside different scenic
sections, thus, they only can be revealed in sequence along the paths.
• The paths in a Chinese garden are usually constructed with varying widths or
paved with different pavement materials to give the beholders the different senses
of experience: constriction, roughness, release, and smoothness.
• The scenic spots in the private Chinese gardens are built for static and dynamic
viewing, and lingering observation.
• Thus, a scene in a private Chinese garden was designed for viewing from a number
of observation points and angles.
• Every scenic section should have its own landscape character, but the garden as
whole must be unified under a central theme.
• Walls were the most common means of demarcating one spatial segment from
another.

Source: The Garden As
Architecture, by Toshiro Inaji
Design Features

Elements of Chinese Garden
There 6 main elements of a Chinese Garden:
Rocks
Water
Vegetation
Pathways
Bridges
Garden Structures

Rocks
• The stone loving of the Chinese stems from the magical
views of the Chinese five holy mountains, which seems
to have played an important role in the Taoist
anchoretism.
• Rock was valued for its bumps, furrows and hollows, and
for the colour and texture of its surface.
• In Chinese gardens, artificial mountains are also
function as space-dividing structural components.
• The sculptural Taihu rock is especially prized because it
represents wisdom and immortality, and is only
procurable from Tai Lake, just west of Suzhou.
• The Chinese word for landscape, shan shui, literally
means "mountains and waters” while a common phrase
for making a garden means "digging ponds and piling
mountains".

Water
• Mountains and water complement each other in
the Chinese arts.
• Water serves as peaceful opposition and
balance to mountain scenery, and is regarded as
the absolutely necessary element to represent
the totality of nature in perfect harmony.
• Water was also used for providing listening
satisfaction in the Chinese private gardens.
• Watercourses were never shaped into any
unnatural geometrical patterns in the Chinese
private garden. A water fountain is never found
in the private Chinese garden.
• Physically water absorbs the heat and adjust the
microclimate during the warm seasons.

Vegetation
• Trees and flowers, especially in private gardens, are carefully selected for the overall layout
of the gardens, because of the limited space.
• Unlike other gardens, Chinese gardens incorporate minimal variety of plants and trees in a
single garden.
• Everything in a Chinese garden seems to have an inner meaning, including the plants.
• Trees and shrubs are planted in more naturalistic arrangements- perhaps in pure stands or
in association with a special rock.
• Sparse plantings of seasonal flowers are scattered about but will never be found in
geometric arrangements- again the objective is to achieve a stylized, naturalistic feel.
• Western gardens tend to have a profusion of plantings whereas the Chinese garden style is
more minimal.
• Lawn is used least in the private Chinese garden, for its beauty is best perceived with
inexhaustible sight ranges, and contradicts the private Chinese garden design principle of
avoiding total exposure of everything at a glance.

Symbolism in Vegetation
Most commonly used plants and trees:
• Lotus- perfection
• Peach- longevity
• Pine- age, silence and solitude
• Mulberry- human activity / toil
• Bamboo- strength and resilience
• Peony- wealth
• Chrysanthemum- the courage to make sacrifices
• Flowering peach- promise of spring flowering
• Plum- renewal and strength of will (very
important plant to include in the garden and
highly symbolic)
Peony
Azalea
Plum
Lotuses

Pathways
• Paths are constructed to accentuate the
changing scenes and views into the garden
and beyond.
• Paths in Chinese gardens are often uneven
and zigzag.
• The paths are like the passages of a human
life. There is always something new or
different when seen from a different angle,
while the future is unknown and
unpredictable.
• Paths may also link to the beauty of scroll
paintings where the landscape is revealed
not in one hit but in a succession of
views.
• The path may be covered in stone, pebbles
or tiles. Or it might be swept clean and
interspersed with patches of moss or other
low ground covers.

Bridge
• The bridge connects the two
different vistas in the Chinese
garden.
• These are also constructed as a
symbol of contrast against the
moving water.
• The half moon cavity under the
bridge, which gets completed after
the reflection on the water surface
follows the principle of harmony
and balance.

Garden Structures
• Among the most ground are walkways,
pavilions, and bridges.
• Timber frame construction plays a decisive role
here.
• Pavilion-like houses have neither a harsh nor
dominant effect, but rather bend effortlessly
into their general surroundings.
• More specifically, we can divide the structures
in classical Chinese gardens into the following:
Lobby, Corridor, Parlour, Waterside Kiosk,
Storied Chamber, Bridge, Storied Pavilion,
Pagoda, Kiosk, Wall.

Design Features
• Distant view
• Obstructive scenery, blocking view
• Borrowed scenery, view borrowing
• Miniature scenery
• Leaking through scenery
• Terminal feature
• Vista line, vista
• Background
• Feature spot, view spot
• Nearby Views
• Enframed scenery
• Main feature
• Objective view
• Front view
• Order of sceneries

Classification of Chinese Gardens
Imperial Style Chinese Gardens Scholarly Style Chinese Gardens

Imperial Style Chinese Gardens
The royal gardens originated in the ancient game reserves of the Chinese emperors of the
Shang Dynasty.

Shanglin Garden
• The Shanglin Garden of the Qin
Dynasty was one of the most famous
royal palace gardens in ancient China.
The E’Fang Palace, famed for its
grandiosity and luxury, was part of
the Shanglin Garden.
• The garden contained a large number
of animals, rare flowers and exotic
fruit trees, as well as the largest
pond, the Kunming Pond.

Ganquan Garden
• The Ganquan Garden was the
product of the Han Dynasty.
• The garden housed more than a
hundred palaces, altars and
pavilions.
• One of the altars, the Tongtiantai
Altar, was used for holding
sacrificial rites to Heaven and
meeting the gods.

Other Chinese Gardens
• In the Tang Dynasty , splendid palaces were built in the cities of Chang’an and
Luoyang .
• In the Song Dynasty, the design of the royal garden, Genyue, in the city of
Kaifeng marked the beginning of a new style in Chinese gardening, the
emphasis being shifted to the stone landscape.
• The unique landscape of the garden was fashioned by piling up the Taihu Lake
Rocks to form the shape of hills, valleys, ponds and islands.
• Royal gardens in the Ming Dynasty were mainly the Three Seas, in addition to
the Imperial Garden at the back of the palace.
• They were the North, Middle and South Seas.
• They were long and narrow in shape, harmonizing naturally with the garden,
contrasting sharply in style with the grand palace complex.

Yuanming Garden
• The royal gardens reached the peak of their splendor in the Qing
Dynasty.
• The Yuanming Garden was the largest and underwent ongoing
reconstruction during the reigns of Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and
Qianlong.
• While inheriting the traditional style of the former royal gardens, they
adopted some artistic characters of the private gardens in the Yangtze
Delta in their ambition to gather in its embrace all the famous gardens
and beautiful views of the country.

• What was unique in the garden was the Ten Scenes of Great Fountains, also
known as the Western Buildings, which imitated the Western baroque
architectural style.
• That was the first time that Chinese gardens copied the layout and
gardening techniques of classical Western gardening, such as fountains,
sculpture and mazes.
• For this reason, the Yuanming Garden was considered to be the Garden of
Gardens.

Scholarly Style Chinese Garden
These gardens are also known as private gardens.
As most of the occupants of these gardens are poets and artists, these are also known as the gardens
of literature.
The wealthy merchants and the aristocrats owned grand gardens, where rare and precious birds and
beasts were kept.

Concept
• The beauty of natural landscapes became
the highlight of private gardens and had
certain spiritual functions.
• Private gardens were a means of
expressing feelings and emotions.
• This was especially the case with the
gardens owned by the literati and scholar-
bureaucrats.
• Private gardens were the symbol of their
leisurely and detached way of life.
• There were more than a thousand private
gardens in the City of Luoyang at that time,
and even more in the City of Chang’an.

Features
• These gardens were generally large in size, with manmade pools and hills and a
variety of flowers, trees and bamboo.
• At that time, garden designers had already learned to apply such techniques as
borrowing scenes and contrasting scenes.
• Stone appreciation had become fashionable, and many gardens had carved out
the Taihu Lake Rocks to compose scenic spots.
• Architectural constructions in these private gardens were generally small and
exquisite or statuesque and elegant, with a circuitous design and a great variety in
spatial arrangements.
• Plants in the garden were mainly deciduous and evergreen trees, supplemented
with bines, bamboo, bananas and grapevines, so as to provide an evergreen and
diversified view all year round.
• Stone views were mainly constructed with Taihu Lake Rocks and Yellow Stones.

Other Facts
• According to historical records, there were more than fifty private
gardens in Beijing, and more than 270 in Suzhou City.
• The most famous private gardens in Beijing were Li Wei’s Qinghua
Garden and Mi Wanzhongs Shaoyuan Garden, both of which designed
to enjoy water views.
• The former was characterized by its splendid magnificence while the
latter mainly emphasized simple delicacy.

Famous Gardens
Beihai Garden
The Humble Administrator’s Garden
Summer Palace

Beihai Park
• Beihai Park was initially built in the
10th Century.
• It is amongst the largest of Chinese
gardens and contains numerous
historically important structures,
palaces and temples.
• The structures and scenes in the Beihai
Park are described as masterpieces of
gardening technique that reflects the
style and the superb architectural skill
and richness of traditional Chinese
garden art.

The Humble Administrator’s
Garden
• Covering 51,950 sq.m, the Humble
Administrator's Garden is the largest of all
classical gardens in Suzhou.
• It is centered upon the broad expanse of a lake,
making up about one fifth of the total area.
• With well spaced buildings, the garden
landscape and waterscape are simple, extensive
and natural, possessing the traditional
appearances of the Ming Dynasty.
• It is divided into three parts; the eastern, middle
and western parts.
• The house lies in the south of the garden.

Summer Palace
• The Summer Palace, located approximately twelve
kilometers to the northwest of Beijing's city proper, was first
built in 1750 and rebuilt in 1886.
• An outstanding example of imperial gardens in classical
Chinese style, the Summer Palace spreads on an area of 2.9
million square meter, three fourths of which are water
surfaces.
• Its major attractions are the Wanshou (longevity) Hill and the
Kunming (Jade Spring)Lake.
• The garden is a showcase of pavilions in diversified, exotic
designs which are strung together by a corridor more than
seven hundred meter in length and a seemingly unending
chain of balustrades of snow-white marble.
• With western hills simmering in the background, the
Summer Palace is strewn with postcard perfect sceneries,
including the Yuquan(Jade Spring)Pagoda, the Kunming Lake,
and the bridge with seventeen arches.
• The huge garden's artistic style, which is at once
kaleidoscopic and harmonious, is attributable to the
unknown designers' ingenious landscaping skills.

Chinese gardens

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