Influences of family culture and garden life on landscape development in classical gardens on Yangtze Delta – a case study of Jichang Garden, Wuxi, China

In the context of tradition and regional characters loss being prevalent in the contemporary landscape architecture, Chinese classical garden with a venerable history and a distinctive character is an extraordinary school of its own worldwide.
Jiangnan classical gardens are the representative of Chinese classical gardens, of which most private gardens were a reflection of the view of nature and traditional aesthetic spirits in the way of design and construction and they were lived in for generations.
Therefore private gardens (mainly literati garden) become the outstanding style of classic gardens in the Yangtze Delta.
Jichang Garden, established and managed by the Qin family from 1527 to 1952 AD is a representative literati garden since the Ming Dynasty with high research value.
This study focuses on the influences of gardening aesthetics, residential life, daily activities and literati gatherings of the Qin family on developments and variations of garden landscape from Ming to Qing Dynasty.
Based on literature of plenty of documents including 293 poems, 5 historical records, 4 local chronicles and a variety of landscape paintings, research has been done on the relationships between garden life (literature association, poetry-painting tradition and Kun opera culture) and the evolution of landscape elements, particularly the arrangement of architecture, rockery, water and plants, which would help us to understand the scholastic garden-making heritage and the narrative of “joy of rambling gardens every day”. The study traces back to the origin and chronological development of the regional characteristics of the unique design style of classical gardens in the Yangtze Delta, which would be valuable to the fierce problem of lack of regional characteristics in Chinese temporary landscape design.

XXX International Horticultural Congress IHC2018: VII Conference on Landscape and Urban Horticulture, IV Conference on Turfgrass Management and Science for Sports Fields and II Symposium on Mechanization, Precision Horticulture, and Robotics

X.Y. Shu, P.Y. Hao, Y. Wang, X.W. Chen, X.M. Shen, H. Kuai, L. Dong

literati garden, family tradition, regional culture, regional characteristic

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2020.1279.20