Chinese Garden

Chinese Garden Examples

Located about two hours outside of Guangzhou, two flower gardens were visited as benchmarks. The concept of Xiaobo’s Garden has been explored for years by Xiaobo Yao-West. We see gardens as an important component for our Chinese Villages. Both traditional Chinese and contemporary gardens and arboretums will be an important feature for the the China Resource for Life lifestyle.

Guangzhou-South, China

Two examples of over 100 Mu gardens were explored. The very traditional Chinese garden was a prefectural project. It examples the living skill levels to execute such a massive work. It also illustrates the shortcomings of a work’s outcome when limited design is utilized. In this case, the designers were not interested in its Sense of Place. Few of the stories or depictions related to the region. Moreover, many architectural principles reflecting rank and position of the location were also off-mark.

For example, the expansive wall above is architecturally too significant to be this far from Beijing (the current seat of power) and the pictorial story has nothing to do with the place.

The seaport depicted is well to the north of Guangzhou. (See photo, right). Moreover, it is actually a recreation of a very ancient and small scroll. When expanded to his massive scale, the effect is well out of proportion.

However, directly behind the screen is a wonderful rose garden that is a favorite of Xiaobo’s. It contains many colors and specials of roses, a flower that grows particularly well in this climate. This is a rather satisfactory example of a contemporary garden existing along side, and within, a very traditional garden (even if technically elements of the Chinese traditional garden are flawed).

In the photo at left Xiaobo is wading through the roses along a path well hidden from view.

Our projects in China would never feature such expansive traditional gardens, but this benchmark examples well the vast vocabulary available to touch upon as each China location develops and matures.

For this example garden to survive it necessarily required a surrounding wall. On a larger scale, the 100 Mu size estate model for the HP projects will allow control of the ecology and views.

In another example outside of Ghougnze a garden specialized in propagation and display of roses. This location was as informal as it was expansive.

This experience was designed for the PRC Chinese; the plastic flowers (even heart-shaped) seemed to attract more attention than the real thing or the non-functioning windmills.

China Survey

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