The Gardens of Suzhou. Ron Henderson

The Gardens of Suzhou

THE

Gardens

Suzhou

Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture

John Dixon Hunt, Series Editor

This series is dedicated to the study and promotion of a wide variety of approaches to landscape architecture, with special emphasis on connections between theory and practice. It includes monographs on key topics in history and theory, descriptions of projects by both established and rising designers, translations of major foreign-language texts, anthologies of theoretical and historical writings on classic issues, and critical writing by members of the profession of landscape architecture.

The series was the recipient of the Award of Honor in Communications from the American Society of Landscape Architects, 2006.

THE

Gardens

Suzhou

RON

HENDERSON

University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia

Published with the aid of a grant from the Getty Foundation.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

Published by University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

www.upenn.edu/pennpress

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Henderson, Ron.

The gardens of Suzhou / Ron Henderson.

p. cm. (Penn studies in landscape architecture)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-0-8122-2214-2 (alk. paper)

1. Historical gardens—China—Suzhou (Jiangsu Sheng). 2. Gardens, Chinese—China—Suzhou (Jiangsu Sheng). 3. Landscape architecture—China—Suzhou (Jiangsu Sheng).

SB466.C52 S8334 2013

635.90951'136

2012014202

The traditional character for garden, above, is a pictogram where one can imagine the outer square as a wall that encloses a garden. The radical at the top resembles the shape of a roof and may represent shelter or a pavilion. The middle radical depicts an inner bounded area, such as a pool or pond, which is commonly the center of a garden. The lower radical is shared with the character for a pomegranate tree, a symbol of fertility and thus, family. The garden, then, can be distilled as a bounded space that has, at its essence, three elements: shelter, water, and fruiting trees.

The simplified Chinese character for garden, above, implemented in Maoist reforms to increase literacy, loses these allusions although the enclosing wall remains. This is the Chinese character that is seen on maps and signs in contemporary Suzhou, but the traditional character may be seen in couplets, carved stones, and other ancient text in the Suzhou gardens.

The term for garden, yuán, is pronounced “you-ann,” where “you” has an uninflected tone and “ann” has a rising second tone. As a small insight into the richness of Chinese language, yuán pronounced in this manner can also mean “circle,” or “original.” It is also the word for “money.” These homophonic tropes are also the source of much Chinese humor.

CONTENTS

Architecture in the Gardens of Suzhou

THE GARDENS OF SUZHOU

Humble Administrator’s Garden (Zhuozheng Yuan)

Lingering Garden (Liu Yuan)

Lion Grove (Shizilin)

Surging Wave Pavilion (Canglang Ting)

Master of the Nets Garden (Wangshi Yuan)