This book is the most thorough study of its subject in any western language. It places particular emphasis on urban context and highlights the unique contribution made by the Chinese garden to architectural spatial design, using new analysis. It examines the history and form of the private garden and the special relationship which existed between house and garden. A study of the novel The Dream of Red Mansions explores the intellectual fascination of the Chinese scholar with the art of the garden. Dr Johnston explores more than forty gardens (having studied most of them at first hand) and, using a wealth of photographs and drawings most of which have never previously been published, makes a meticulous analysis of each. This investigation of gardens from the Han, Tan and Song dynasties includes the great classical tradition of Suzhou, private gardens from seven other Chinese cities, and the lesser-known vernacular garden tradition of small towns and villages.

Gardens take many forms, and have a variety of functions. They can serve as spaces of peace and tranquilty, a way to cultivate wildlife, or as places to develop agricultural resources. Globally, gardens have inspired, comforted, and sustained people from all walks of life, and since the Garden of Eden many iconic gardens have inspired great artists, poets, musicians, and writers. In this Very Short Introduction, Gordon Campbell embraces gardens in all their splendour, from parks, and fruit and vegetable gardens to ornamental gardens, and takes the reader on a globe-trotting historical journey through iconic and cultural signposts of gardens from different regions and traditions. Ranging from the gardens of ancient Persia to modern day allotments, he concludes by looking to the future of the garden in the age of global warming, and the adaptive spirit of human innovation. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

From the Lake of Reflected Fragrance to the Pavilion for Washing Away Thoughts to the Isle of Alighting Geese, this gorgeously illustrated volume explores the Huntington's Chinese Garden—Liu Fang Yuan, or the Garden of Flowing Fragrance—one of the largest such gardens outside China. With the first phase of construction completed, the garden opened to visitors in early 2008. It resembles those created in seventeenth-century Suzhou, offering awe-inspiring views and architecture and evoking an era when scholars sought quiet, intimate gardens in which to retreat, write poetry, and practice calligraphy, among many other pursuits. The contributors to Another World Lies Beyond discuss the challenges of constructing the garden in Southern California as well as the cultural traditions and aesthetics of Chinese garden design, especially the ways in which the plants and structures engage the imagination of visitors. Inscribed poetic couplets, literary allusions, botanical motifs, and evocative names for structures reveal layers of symbolism for exploration and interpretation. The volume's final essay describes how plants that originated in China—such as the chrysanthemum, the plum, and the camellia—have shaped that country's ancient botanical heritage and have enriched the gardens of both East and West.

Suzhou, near Shanghai, is among the great garden cities of the world. The city's masterpieces of classical Chinese garden design, built from the eleventh through the nineteenth centuries, attract thousands of visitors each year and continue to influence international design. In The Gardens of Suzhou, landscape architect and scholar Ron Henderson guides visitors through seventeen of these gardens. The book explores UNESCO world cultural heritage sites such as the Master of the Nets Garden, Humble Administrator's Garden, Lingering Garden, and Garden of the Peaceful Mind, as well as other lesser-known but equally significant gardens in the Suzhou region. Unlike the acclaimed religious and imperial gardens found elsewhere in Asia, Suzhou's gardens were designed by scholars and intellectuals to be domestic spaces that drew upon China's rich visual and literary tradition, embedding cultural references within the landscapes. The elements of the gardens confront the visitor: rocks, trees, and walls are pushed into the foreground to compress and compact space, as if great hands had gathered a mountainous territory of rocky cliffs, forests, and streams, then squeezed it tightly until the entire region would fit into a small city garden. Henderson's commentary opens Suzhou's gardens, with their literary and musical references, to non-Chinese visitors. Drawing on years of intimate experience and study, he combines the history and spatial organization of each garden with personal insights into their rockeries, architecture, plants, and waters. Fully illustrated with newly drawn plans, maps, and original photographs, The Gardens of Suzhou invites visitors, researchers, and designers to pause and observe astonishing works from one of the world's greatest garden design traditions.

Five connected essays distills famed garden historian Chen Congzhou's lifetime of experience with and thinking about the essentials of traditional Chinese garden designs and the appropriate restoration of historic landscapes and gardens.

Gardens are sites that can be at one and the same time admired works of art and valuable pieces of real estate. As the first account in English to be wholly based on contemporary Chinese sources, this innovative, beautifully illustrated book grounds the practices of garden-making in Ming dynasty China (1368-1644) firmly in the social and cultural history of the day. Who owned Ming gardens? Who visited them? How were they represented in words, in paintings, and in visual culture generally, and what meanings did these representations hold at different levels of Chinese society? How did the discourse of gardens intersect with other discourses such as those of aesthetics, agronomy, geomancy, and botany? By examining the gardens of the city of Suzhou from a number of different angles, Craig Clunas provides a rich picture of a complex cultural phenomenon--one that was of crucial importance to the self-fashioning of the Ming elite. Drawing on a wide range of recent work in cultural theory, the author provides for the first time a historical and materialist account of Chinese garden culture, and replaces broad generalizations and orientalist fantasy with a convincing picture of the garden's role in social life. Fruitful Sites will appeal to all students of China's cultural history, to students of garden history from any part of the world, to art historians, and to readers engaged in Asian and cultural studies.

With dozens of stunning photographs, this modern translation of a Classic text is a masterpiece of classical Chinese gardening. Ji Cheng's great work on garden design, the Yuan Ye or Craft of Gardens, was originally published around 1631 and is the earliest manual of landscape gardening in the Chinese tradition. This is the first complete English translation of Ji Cheng's seminal work. This Chinese gardening book is based on J Cheng's notes and experiences from his career as a garden designer, which he discusses at some length in his introduction> Since architecture is an integral part of the Chinese garden, much of the book is taken up with the design of different types of buildings and the integration of architecture with nature in the garden. Ji Cheng explains the religious and aesthetic principles underlying garden design and the appropriate emotional response to various effects. he then offers a down-to-earth series of instructions about the requirements of different types of sites, building layouts, architectural features, paving, the construction of artificial mountains, selection of rocks, and the use of natural scenery. This delightful book provides not only insights into Chinese gardening but also a unique perspective on Chinese culture and society in the late Ming dynasty. Full notes by the translator explain obscure points and introduce relevant aspects of Chinese culture, while an introduction by Maggie Keswick sets the book firmly in its historical context. Illustrations include not only Ji Cheng's original diagrams but also historical paintings and contemporary photographs of a number of outstanding gardens in the part of East China where Ji Cheng lived and worked.