Chinese Scholar Garden

August, 2023
Wanjing

It is only after I came to the United States that I started to realize how different Chinese gardens are. The most noticeable type of Chinese garden is the scholar garden, concentrated in southeast China, where temperatures are mild and there is an abundance of water. Over the years, my repeated visits to these gardens, coupled with sketching, revealed the remarkable flexibility and distinct personalities inherent in each one.

Yipu, the Garden of Cultivation dating back to 1541, stands out as a personal favorite. Nestled humbly within an old city residential neighborhood, it eschews lavish adornments in favor of simplicity and honesty. The entrance sequence, marked by turns flanked by vine-covered walls, unfolds unexpectedly, leading to a pavilion from where the entire garden and its serene lake reveal themselves.

The entrance to Nan Zhai, or South Study, within Yipu is particularly memorable. Hidden behind rockeries and tall walls, this garden within a garden welcomes visitors with a moon gate. However, one must traverse a bridge to reach the gate, with water flowing seamlessly into the inner garden. The deliberate defiance of conventional expectations is a recurring theme in Scholar Gardens.

As an architecture scholar Tong Jun put it:

“When one is viewing a scroll of Chinese painting, one seldom inquires theater so large a man could creep into so small a hut, or whether a crooked path and the few thin planks which bridge a billowing torrent could carry the drunken recluse on his donkey to the opposite shore in safety. In Chinese painting, some rules or rather exceptions must be agreed upon before any esthetic pleasure can be enjoyed. The same convention in absurdities also applies to the Chinese classical gardens, which is in fact but Chinese painting in three dimensions.”¹

In a scholar garden, there is no delineation of architecture and landscape, from planting to rockery. Everything is well integrated. The variety of design elements are endless. The composition of them is extremely flexible. The intricacy and complexity is very difficult to design on paper. They were designed through experiment, experience and change slowly over time.

Covered walkways, crucial for sheltering visitors from the region's intense summer heat, form the backbone of circulation systems. These walkways, often meandering and climbing, direct visitors' views to different focal points. There are covered walkways over water, or climbing up to different levels. But my most memorable covered walkway is in Zhuozheng Yuan. It changes both in plan and elevation, gracefully opening to water.

Dramatic contrasts of light characterize Scholar Gardens, achieved through zig-zagging walkways against walls, carefully framed views, and the deliberate separation of rooflines from adjacent walls. Remarkably, these strategies, which evoke a sense of modernity, resonate with techniques employed in contemporary architecture.

It is not the style that matters, it is the intentions and strategies.