Hello everyone,

In this video i will take you to the virtual tour of Chinese gardens and will explain you
about the CHINESE GARDEN DESIGN PHILOSOPHIES AND ELEMENTS
Introduction
The Chinese gardens, it is a manner in landscape of gardens which has developed over three
thousand years starting from china
It has a wide variety which varies in scale and functions according to the change in user.
For example:
Bigger vast gardens of the Chinese emperors and members of the imperial family, built for
pleasure and to impress.
And the more intimate gardens created by scholars, poets, former government officials, soldiers
and merchants, made for reflection and escape from the outside world.
They create an idealized miniature landscape, which is meant to express the harmony that should
exist between man and nature.
Basic elements used in Chinese gardens are :
Walls, one or more ponds, rock works, trees and flowers, and an assortment of halls and pavilions
within the garden, connected by winding paths and zig-zag galleries, Idea behind this is to give
visitors a view which has a series of carefully composed scenes, unrolling like a scroll of landscape
paintings when they move from structure to structure.

Functions
Chinese classical garden had multiple functions.
It could be used for banquets, celebrations, reunions, or romance.
It could be used to find peace and observe nature.
It is very calm place for painting, poetry, calligraphy, and music, and for studying other art forms.
It was a place for drinking tea and for poets to become happily drunk on wine.
It was a showcase to display the cultivation and aesthetic taste of the owner, with a philosophical
message in it.

Design Philosophies
Chinese gardens are distinctive in their symbolic use of water, stone, plants, and architecture to
create a place of beauty, vibrant with the flow of universal energy.
These four elements manifest the opposing principles of yin (earth/receptive/dark) and yang
(heaven/creative/bright).
Chinese philosophy views yin and yang as the interactive, cycling forces that drive the rhythms of
life.
Water is considered as the nurturing yin, that means the blood of life and living pulse of the earth.
It can be reflected by, calmness in ponds, rushing and dynamic in rocky streams, shining and soft
reflections of the moon, sun, stone, plants, and pavilions.
Stone, as the symbol of strength and stability, it balances the flowing yin of water in the rocky
gorges and in structures such as bridges, courtyards, and pathways.
Stone groupings rise high with yang energy and symbolize mountains.
Plants brings, structure, texture, beauty, and deep cultural meaning.
For example : Pines symbolize endurance, bamboo flexibility, and lotus purity.
Plants has a natural quality to create an intricate composition with water, stone, and architecture.
Without architecture elements, the garden designs can’t be complete.
There are multi-story pavilion to get a wide view range.
A teahouse beckons for refreshment and conversation.
To make music and dance more entertaining courtyards are used.
Each Chinese garden has many gardens in it, where nature, arts, and people intertwine.
Landscape Design elements of classical Chinese gardens
Overview
A Chinese garden was not meant to be seen all at once; the plan of a classical Chinese garden
presented the visitor with a series of perfectly composed and framed glimpses of scenery; a view
of a pond, or of a rock, or a grove of bamboo, a blossoming tree, or a view of a distant mountain
peak or a pagoda.
The 16th-century Chinese writer and philosopher, Ji Cheng, instructed garden builders to "hide the
vulgar and the common as far as the eye can see, and include the excellent and the splendid."
priest Jean Denis, who lived in China from 1739 and was a court painter for the Qianlong Emperor,
he observed that there was a "beautiful disorder, an anti-symmetry" in the Chinese garden.
"One admires the art with which this irregularity is carried out.
Everything is in good taste, and so well arranged, that there is not a single view from which all the
beauty can be seen; you have to see it piece by piece."
Chinese classical gardens varied greatly in size.
The largest garden in Suzhou, the Humble Administrator's Garden, was a little over ten hectares in
area, with one fifth of the garden occupied by the pond.
In contrast to that Ji Cheng built a garden for Wu Youyu, the Treasurer of Jinling, that was just
under one hectare in size, and the tour of the garden was only four hundred steps long, from the
entrance to the last viewing point, but it contained all the marvels of the province in a single
place.

Architecture

Chinese gardens are filled with architecture; halls, pavilions, temples, galleries, bridges, kiosks, and
towers, occupying a large part of the space.
The Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou has forty-eight structures, including a residence,
several halls for family gatherings and entertainment, eighteen pavilions for viewing different
features of the garden, and an assortment of towers, galleries, and bridges, all designed for
seeing different parts of the gardens from different points of view.
The garden structures are not designed to dominate the landscape, but to be in harmony with it.
Classical gardens traditionally have these structures:
The ceremony hall, or “room”.
A building used for family celebrations or ceremonies, usually with an interior courtyard, not far
from the entrance gate.
The principal pavilion or “large room”,
It is used for the reception of guests, for banquets and for celebrating holidays, such as New Years
and the Festival of Lanterns. It often has a veranda around the building to provide cool and
shade.
The pavilion of flowers or “flower room”.
Located near the residence, this building has a rear courtyard filled with flowers, plants, and a
small rock garden.
The pavilion facing the four directions or “four doors room”.
This building has folding or movable walls, for opening up a panoramic view of the garden.
The lotus pavilion or “lotus room”.
Built next to a lotus pond, to see the flowers bloom and appreciate their aroma.
The pavilion of mandarin ducks or “mandarin ducks room”.
This building is divided into two sections; one facing north used in summer, facing a lotus pond
which provided cool air; and the southern part used in winter, with a courtyard planted with pine
trees.
The names of the pavilions in Chinese gardens express the view or experience they offer the
visitor, few examples from Suzhou, china are:
The Peak-Worshipping Pavilion in The Lingering Garden.
Pavilion of the Moon and Wind in Master of the Nets Garden.
The Hall of Distant Fragrances, The Mountain View Tower, Pavilion in the Lotus Breeze in Humble
Administrator's Garden.
Gardens also often feature two-story towers, usually at the edge of the garden, with a lower story
made of stone and a whitewashed upper story, two-thirds the height of the ground floor, which
provided a view from above of certain parts of the garden or the distant scenery.
Gardens contain small enclosed courtyards, offering quiet and solitude for meditation, painting,
drinking tea, or playing on the cithare.
Galleries are narrow covered corridors which connect the buildings, protect the visitors from the
rain and sun, and also help divide the garden into different sections.
These galleries are rarely straight; they zigzag or are serpentine, following the wall of the garden,
the edge of the pond, or climbing the hill of the rock garden.
They have small windows, sometimes round or in odd geometric shapes, to give glimpses of the
garden or scenery to those passing through.
Windows and doors are an important architectural feature of the Chinese garden.
Sometimes they are round also known as moon windows or oval, hexagonal or octagonal, or in
the shape of a vase or a piece of fruit.
Sometimes they have highly ornamental ceramic frames.
The window may carefully frame a branch of a pine tree, or a plum tree in blossom, or another
intimate garden scene.
Bridges are another common feature of the Chinese garden.
Like the galleries, they are rarely straight, but zigzag popularly known as the Nine-turn bridges or
arch over the ponds, suggesting the bridges of rural China, and providing view points of the
garden.
Bridges are often built from rough timber or stone-slab raised pathways.
Some gardens have brightly painted or lacquered bridges, which give a lighthearted feeling to
the garden.
Gardens also often include small, simple houses for solitude and meditation, sometimes in the form
of rustic fishing huts, and isolated buildings which serve as libraries or studios.
Artificial Mountains and rock gardens

The artificial mountain or rock garden is an integral element of Chinese classical gardens.
The mountain peak was a symbol of virtue, stability and endurance.
A mountain peak on an island was also a central part of the legend of the Isles of the Immortals,
and thus became a central element in many classical gardens.
The first rock garden appeared in Chinese garden history in Tu Yuan also known as “rabbit garden.
During the Song dynasty, the artificial mountains were made mostly of earth.
But Emperor Huizong (1100–1125) nearly ruined the economy of the Song Empire by destroying the
bridges of the Grand Canal so he could carry huge rocks by barge to his imperial garden.
During the Ming dynasty, the use of piles of rocks to create artificial mountains and grottos
reached its peak.
During the Qing dynasty, the Ming rock gardens were considered too artificial and the new
mountains were composed of both rocks and earth.
The artificial mountain in Chinese gardens today usually has a small view pavilion at the summit. In
smaller classical gardens, a single scholar rock represents a mountain, or a row of rocks represents
a mountain range.

A pond or lake is the central element of a Chinese garden. The main buildings are usually placed
beside it, and pavilions surround the lake to see it from different points of view. The garden usually
has a pond for lotus flowers, with a special pavilion for viewing them. There are usually goldfish in
the pond, with pavilions over the water for viewing them.

Water

The lake or pond has an important symbolic role in the garden.

Water represents lightness and communication, and carried the food of life on its journey through
the valleys and plains.
It is also the complement to the mountain, the other central element of the garden, and
represents dreams and the infinity of spaces.
The shape of the garden pond often hides the edges of the pond from viewers on the other side,
giving the illusion that the pond goes on to infinity.
The softness of the water contrasts with the solidity of the rocks.
The water reflects the sky, and therefore is constantly changing, but even a gentle wind can
soften or erase the reflections.
The lakes and waterside pavilions in Chinese gardens were also influenced by Chinese classical
literature.
Many gardens, particularly in the gardens of Jiangnan and the imperial gardens of northern
China, have features and names taken from the Chinese classical literature.
Small gardens have a single lake, with a rock garden, plants and structures around its edge.
Middle-sized gardens will have a single lake with one or more streams coming into the lake, with
bridges crossing the streams, or a single long lake divided into two bodies of water by a narrow
channel crossed by a bridge.
In a very large garden like the Humble Administrator's Garden, the principal feature of the garden
is the large lake with its symbolic islands, symbolizing the isles of the immortals.
Streams come into the lake, forming additional scenes.
Numerous structures give different views of the water, including a stone boat, a covered bridge,
and several pavilions by the side of or over the water.
Flowers and Trees

Flowers and trees, along with water, rocks and architecture, are the fourth essential element of
the Chinese garden.
They represent nature in its most vivid form, and contrast with the straight lines of the architecture
and the permanence, sharp edges and immobility of the rocks.
They change continually with the seasons, and provide both sounds like the sound of rain on
banana leaves or the wind in the bamboo and also aromas to please the visitor.
Each flower and tree in the garden had its own symbolic meaning.
For example : The pine, bamboo and Chinese plum were considered the "Three Friends of Winter"
The peach tree in the Chinese garden symbolized longevity and immortality, which was inspired
by the classic story “The Orchard of Xi Wangmu”, the Queen Mother of the West.
This story said that in Xi Wangmu's legendary orchard, peach trees flowered only after three
thousand years, and those who ate these peaches became immortal.
Of the flowers in the Chinese garden, the most appreciated were the orchid, peony, and lotus.
During the Tang dynasty, the peony, the symbol of opulence and a flower with a delicate
fragrance, was the most celebrated flower in the garden.
The poet Zhou Dunyi wrote a famous elegy to the lotus, comparing it to a junzi, a man who
possessed integrity and balance.
The orchid was the symbol of nobility, and of impossible love, as in the Chinese expression "a
faraway orchid in a lonely valley."
The lotus was admired for its purity, and its efforts to reach out of the water to flower in the air
made it a symbol of the search for knowledge.
The creators of the Chinese garden were careful to preserve the natural appearance of the
landscape.

"Borrowing scenery", time and seasons

According to Ji Cheng's 16th century book, "The Craft of Gardens," "borrowing scenery" was the
most important thing of a garden.
This could mean using scenes outside the garden, such as a view of distant mountains or the trees
in the neighboring garden, to create the illusion that garden was much bigger than it was.
The most famous example was the mist-shrouded view of the North Temple Pagoda in Suzhou,
seen in the distance over the pond of the Humble Administrator's Garden.
Actually borrowing scenery is the conclusive, last chapter of Yuanye that explains borrowing
scenery as a holistic understanding of the essence of landscape design in its entirety.
The ever-changing moods and appearances of nature in a given landscape in full action are
understood by the author as an independent function that becomes an agent for garden
making.
It is nature including the garden maker that creates.
The season and the time of day were also important elements.
Garden designers took into account the scenes of the garden that would look best in winter,
summer, spring and autumn, and those best viewed at night, in the morning or afternoon.

Concealment and surprise

Another important garden element was concealment and surprise.

The garden was not meant to be seen all at once, it was laid out to present a series of scenes.
Visitors moved from scene to scene either within enclosed galleries or by winding paths which
concealed the scenes until the last moment.
The scenes would suddenly appear at the turn of a path, through a window, or hidden behind a
screen of bamboo.
They might be revealed through round "moon doors" or through windows of unusual shapes, or
windows with elaborate lattices that broke the view into pieces.
This was brief journey of Chinese gardens I hope you enjoyed it, see you next time with another.