Brief Introduction of the Humble Administrator's Garden
Built in early years at the reign of Zhengde of Ming Dynasty, the Humble Administrator's Garden was a typical example of south classic garden. Together with summer palace, Emperor Kangxi's Summer Mountain Resort in Chengde and Suzhou Lingering Garden, the Humble Administrator's Garden gained the reputation of one of China's four famous gardens. The Humble Administrator's Garden was located in the northeast of the Suzhou city, covering an area of 78 Mu (about 5.2 hectare). The whole garden was centered with water, surrounded by mountains and rivers. The outdoor pavilions are elegantly furnished, flowers of different kinds be seen everywhere. The whole scene looks like a picture with rich south Han Chinese people. Today, the Humble Administrator's Garden was divided into three parts: the east, the middle, and the west. The east was purchased by Wang Xinyi at ChongZhen at the fourth year to build his dreamy country-style garden. The west was changed into the name "Bu Gargden" when it was possessed by Zhang Jiqian in the third year at the reign of GuangXu in Ming dynasty. The middle was the remnant of later Qing dynasty, which has a distinctively clear order.
Features of the Humble Administrator's Garden were as follows:
1 Waterscape was highlighted.
2 All the architectures were designed with the landscape so it won’t damage the prospect.
3 Mountains and pools are built under the design of the excellent architectures to match the scene.
4 Corridor Bridges were long and zigzag, thus making more poetic sense.
5 The scene and landscape were decorated with plants that are also grouped to manifest the meaning and intention of the designer.
This paper analyzed the middle and west part of the garden to discover the secrecy that how the garden was built. This paper explored upper questions mainly from the following 6 aspects:
- Layout
- Layout of Waters
- Mound Building
- Architectures
- Trees and Flowers
- Cultural Connotation.
Ⅰ. Layout
The Humble Administrator's Garden belongs to the category of large gardens, which is totally independent from dwelling place and ancestral hall, with much more functions including living, resting, playing and reading, receiving guests, Inviting friends, listening to the opera, watching fish swimming, appreciating moon ….
The access: In order to avoid the situation that one must go through the dwelling part to get to the garden, the Humble Administrator's Garden adds an outdoor direct entrance and exit. When it was first built, lawn was left, so the lane was so long that the axis line of the garden was narrow and zigzag.
- Scenic Spot and Space
One defining feature of garden layout is dividing the entire place to smaller parts to gain rich diversified landscapes, enlarge the space in people‘s mind, thus can better fit people‘s needs. The Humble Administrator's Garden was outstanding for its waters and mountains. Many resorts within the garden can be seen as a whole to better represent designer’s feeling and intentions, decorated with architecture, thus becoming gardens of garden. The designer makes them work with each other perfectly no matter in landscape or in meanings through letting them being contrast, different, matching their own landscape, ect, making it a big of little garden, outstanding with less gardens in total.
As a large garden, the Humble Administration Garden consists of many scenic spots, so the center to be stressed has to be concentrated so as to highlight the key points and the garden theme. In short, the purpose is to ensure the priority among priorities.
2. Touring Path
Starting from the Chinese ‘Taoism’ and ‘Circle’, which is underlines great perfection, the touring path of the Humble Administration Garden moves in circle and never end. The circulating make endless and room-less impact on the visitors. Line design in the mobile place was the essence in Chinese garden design and building.
Generally speaking, there are two kinds of touring paths:
1) Corridor or Path or Rooms Corresponding with the Mountain and Pool.
2) Small Roads on the Mountain and Bridges on or Cave in Rivers.
Built around mountains and by rivers, the touring path fully utilized the waterscape to show the meaning of circulating and endlessness.
3. Contrast and Comparison
In terms of the general layout, the Humble Administration Garden‘s hall was water on one side and mountain, flowers, plants on the other side. It also utilized to the fullest extent in the same room to make a distinct contrast with the pool and rooms.
Comparison can play a role of making distinct distinguish among all, typical methods setting off the high with low or highlight dim with light.
(Left picture above) Looking at the Prunus Mume Pavilion from the mountain , its line contour are extremely beautiful ,
(Middle picture above) Whitewalls support the rocks
(Right picture above) Peaceful river support the steep rocks.
4. Opposite Scenery and Borrowed Scenery
“Opposite scenery” is actually seeing something through a special imposed door hole or window. The scenery looks as if it was embedded to the frame. In fact, we can often see such designs like seeing the other side‘s scenery through a door hole or through special imposed window from inward to outward. One thing was thus made into the opposite scenery.
In addition, a good garden layout must break out the self-limit in space, fully utilizing the beautiful scenery around. Borrowing the scenery, a good choice of the viewing place and angle can further extend and widen the depth and width of the vision, making an integration of both internal and external scenery.
5. Depth and Layers
5.1 If you want to make the scenery looks deep and long, the mountains and architectures are usually put along the long direction, which is usually the flowing direction, borrowing the characteristics of the water being glittering and illusory, thus making one hard to define the distance between him and the scenery. At the same time, if the layers are single or few, one can easily see all the scenery at once, which may make even large space looks small. On the contrary, with more layers, the scenery can easily hide, which may make one feel the space is distant and deep. In the Humble Administration Garden, when looking to the west from the bamboo of living pavilion in the long direction, one can not only gain the deepest scenery but also see about three layers’ different scenery space. The first space layer ends in the pavilion in lotus breezes, the south of which is Drifting Fragrance Hall and Nanxuan, north of which are two islands located with the Prunus Mume Pavilion and the Orange Pavilion. The second layer can be seen through the bridges and dams of pavilion in lotus breezes. However, the Humble Administration Garden‘s Both Families Pavilion and Beisi Pagoda are much higher than the corridor, which is the third layer. One layer feels much deeper than the former in space.
5.2 The most valuable thing of the scenery spot is its depth in space, the reason why south garden is more curve and deep is the application of “之” (Chinese character) corridor. It is said in Yuanzhi (《园治》) that gardens in the past are circuitous in the right angle. Today’s the so-called circuitous garden is only zigzag along the landscape, curve with the depth of land, or around the mountain or around the water, stretching itself to the far more distant place. In other words, today’s “之” (Chinese character) curve can be turned into another direction at any angle.
Besides corridors, other elements made up garden like rock, water, band, road, bridge, walls are all circuitous with the landscape to make the scenery to the full.
Ⅱ Layout of waters
Waters in garden can be seen as a whole or divided into different parts. As a whole, the water is wide, divided, the water flowing winds and meander. Separate water into different connected parts can make the illusion that the flow is no end and no source. The Humble Administration Garden used this method to give people the impression of deep and secret.
The water in the Humble Administrator's Garden is divided into several parts by the two mountains in the river and bridges and plants. Water was leveled with a clear space distinction and connected with each other from the center-Drifting Fragrance Hall. Sceneries are distinct by their distance, By the water there are the spot for watching. Water covers two fifths of the total area. Indeed, it has a sense of south water town.
Another important thing is the waterbank, naturally there are soil banks, rock banks, all of which have enriched the scenery, adding more layers. Plants in the banks can also be disposed. The contrast between rock and water manifest the distinction of soft and firm, as well as the feeling of distance of water. The disposal of banks also has to obey the rule of zigzag. Rocks of Different size and shape should be matched ingeniously with density variable, thus creating a sense of irregularity
Ⅲ Piles of Mountains and Stones
If we say that stream is the pulse of garden, stone will be the bone of garden: piled mountains can be divided into large and small mountains. Large mountains are made of soil while small ones are made of stones. We consider the big amount of soil as the first place, so it is obvious that soil plays an important role in the garden. The mountains in the garden are the combination of soil and stone. There are mountains made of the soil totally, such as the ones in the northwest corner of the Prunus Mume Pavilion; mountains where soil are more than stone, such as the Embroidered Peony Pavilion and the two in the pool. There are also mountains where stone are more than soil and the mountains made of stone totally. We have three rules of distancing to pile the natural stones into the rockery. The first one is lofty:Low in the front and high behind, we should make the hilltop be a shape like the Chinese character “之”. The second one is far-reaching: Two mountains have to be set side by side and interlaced just like the teeth of dogs. The third one is smooth:The mountains should be strewn at random and winding.
The author begins the analysis from the two mountains in the pool in the center of the garden. (Look at the chart in the upper right corner)The central scenery divide the single large space into two narrow small space—A and B( there is a narrow gully to interlinked in the middle). This mean doesn’t show any trace. The scale of piling stone hill is also important. The pavilions on the hill would better not be too big or small.
In order to make the garden veiled and distant, screen wall often be set to block the sight to make people could not take everything in a glance, which can also increase the space layers. What’s more, the natural stones can not only take this effect but also show on artificial trace, which will make the hill natural.
To pile the stone hill in the small courtyard, there is another mean for putting rock wall in order on the white walls, so as to form a beautiful picture. Just like what is read in the book “Yuanye”, regarding the wall as a piece of paper and using the stones to draw on it, which is the poetic and pictorial splendor of the ancients.
For scale, people have obtained the data by summarizing: height of rockery is less than 7 meters and the range of visibility should be between 12 meters and 35 meters. In this way, the scale of the garden can be harmonious and have the manner of urban forest.
Ⅳ Buildings
The building in the Classical Gardens of Suzhou plays a dual role of using and enjoying. And the buildings are not only different in the position, shape and density but also in many types. The layout method is also flexibly adapted to local conditions. The common types of buildings are hall, room, veranda with windows, embassy, pavilion, shed, boat, arbour, corridor etc. The model and combination of the buildings are demanded light, small and full of changes. The form of building is not affirmatory either.
1) Courtyard
The above are the enclosed courtyards, which can create a quiet atmosphere and make a self-contained environment itself.
Open courtyards are also quite common in gardens and Xiaocanglang Water courtyard is the typical one among them. Look at the next chart.
Make use of the empty corridor and the portals on the wall, the bare window and the ornamental perforated window to communicate with the outside and obtain the relationship of the space. This courtyard not only can make the space through to avoid suffocation of small space landscape, but also can make inside and outside of the courtyard share their scenery, enhancing the effect of landscape unfolding.
2) Building’s Types
2.1 Hall and room: it is used to be the place where the master played and enjoyed. They can be divided according to the structure: the one made of the rectangular wood is called hall, and the other one made of round materials is called room.
Yuanxiang Room(the upper left): is the form of surrounding by four walls and convenient to enjoy the scenery from the all sides. And it is surrounded by the winding corridor. The long windows are installed between the column and not for walls.
Yuanyang Hall(the upper right): is another form of hall. The screen, cover and yarn shelf separate the hall into two parts, just as it was combined of these two parts. Its effects are that the south is good for spring and winter while the north is good for the summer and autumn.
2.2 Floor and pavilion: are often located around the garden or between the hill and stream. It always has two floors and the height of upper is 7/10 of that of the lower.
Jianshan Floor (chart above): prominent position, and is an important scenery. There are galleries on both upper and lower floors to link with it. Especially the Pashan Gallery to the upper floor, with the terrain ups and downs, is very charming and interesting.
Daoying Floor: as the background, its position is a bit hidden relative to the Jianshan Floor. Its stairs are set inside and close to the pool. It is harmonious for the size of it and the water.
2.3 Shed and boat. are mostly waterfront buildings. In order to reconcile its body with the surface of the water, from the whole body contour to doors and windows, Lankan and gooseneck chair, each is with horizontal lines mainly.
Xiangzhou(chart above): is a ship building. The front part is mostly facing water at three sizes. Each side of the bow has a bridge connected with the shore and imitates a springboard. The flat of the shed was divided into three parts. In the front of the ship is high, slightly lower in the cabin. The tail section is two layers, so as to look, similar to Suzhou restaurant.
2.4 Pavilion: is the place to rest and overlook and also the important decoration of the garden’s scenery. The position of the pavilion can be arranged on the mountain, the forest, the road and the water. The size and shape of it should be suit to local conditions, and the flat of pavilion can be six corners, round, rectangular shaped, fan-shaped, plum shaped and begonia etc. There are many kinds in the Humble Administrator's Garden.
2.5 Gallery: in the garden it is the context to keep in touch. It is also the tour guide line of the scenery. Its layout is often conformal and bending, according to potential and its meandering, full of change and space division, and it can also increase the depth of scenery. The porch light should avoid too high, and the bay should not be too large, the general width is 1.2m ~ 1.5m. Column should be around 3 meters and column diameter is about 15cm, the column height of about 2.5m.
2.6 Others (Charter above):
The size of the buildings in the Jiangnan garden architecture is relatively small to those in the north. There is no point to give a reduction. Merging into the mountains, pools and trees, the proportion is harmonious and it also cause a sense of urban forest, which is really charming even in the universe.
（Ⅴ）Flowers and Trees
Many of the landscapes in the garden are directly linked to flowers and trees, for example the Garden of Pipa, Hall of Far off Fragrance, Hall of Yulan Magnolia, Spring castle of Malus spectabilis, Stay and Listen Pavilion, Listening to the Rain Pavilion and so on. Garden is not only a kind of visual art, but also related to hearing, smelling and other senses. In addition, seasons and other seasonal climate changes, such as rain and snow weather will change the space conception and affect people's feelings.
Stay and Listen Pavilion(see upper left picture ) is mainly focus on rain watching, east and south sides of the building are in the pool. And the pool is filled with lotus.
The fragrant snow and azure cloud Pavilion(see left lower picture) is located on a small hill in the middle of the garden, surrounding it there are many wintersweets besides several high trees, therefore every cold season in a year, the tough wintersweets will be in full bloom. Then the fragrance of the flower and the beauty of the snow will shine each other.
Listening to the Rain Pavilion(see right picture),is in a corner of this pavilion planted by banana trees,when in the raining days, by the sound effect produced by rain hitting the banana trees, it will render an amazing atmosphere of rain. In addition, there are sweet scented osmanthus, YuLan, peach bamboo as a foil to make the four seasons appear different scenery.
(see upper left picture ) In the middle, there is a lotus pool and its south is facing the main hall of the garden-- Hall of Far off Fragrance. Every summer, when lotus is in blossom, bursts of fragrance will spread with the breeze inside and outside the hall, which will make you feel euphoria.
(see left lower picture) The configuration of the two trees should be one big and one small, each occupying a corner of the garden. Hall of Yulan Magnolia have two trees, big and small. The big one is Yulan as the main ornamental object, while the small one as a foil.
(see upper right picture ) there should be two to three trees or solitary planting in the tiny courtyard space as a decoration, which often get an ideal effect. However you should avoid planting the isolated trees in the middle instead of in the corner.
In the middle of the Humble Administrator's Garden, buildings are more sparse, scattered, therefore can not effectively form the interface. By planting trees and flowers can compensate for the lack of construction, and at the same time that will play a leading role in the limited space.
（Ⅵ）Cultural Connotation
The artistic value of garden not only lies on the construction factors, Men of literature and writing, as the master of the garden, their works also play a big role. And once the garden has this culture meaning, it will develop the depth and breadth of the landscape spiritually, that will lead to endless daydream accordingly. Orchid and Snow Parlour, in the east of the garden, its name comes from the famous poet Libai’s poem” du li tian di jian, qing feng lan xue”. At the same time, “take a broad view pavilion” comes from Poet Bai juyi’s famous poem”fang yan kan qing shan”.” Hall of Far off Fragrance” comes from Poet Zhou dunyi’s”xiang yuan si yi”. “Frost Pavilion” comes from the Poet Wei yingwu’S poem”dong ting xu dai man lin shuang” “The fragrant snow and azure cloud Pavilion” comes from Poet Sushi’s poem” hua jian zhi jiu qing xiang fa,zheng wan chang tiao luo xiang xue”. The poem make people feel moved in the scenery, and Landscape named in poetic meaning. The garden cultural information is conveyed by poem, that added more dimensions to culture meaning of the garden, and make everyone exposed to a strong cultural atmosphere.
