Zhuo Zheng Yuan, Suzhou, China

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Jeffrey Scott Anderson (was created by)

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"The Zhuo Zheng Yuan... better translated as Garden of the Artless Administrator (an allusion to the words of a discontented third-century AD scholar-official who claimed that gardening was the only form of administration suited to the artless), was the site of a Confucian's scholar's house in the Tang dynasty and a monastery under the Yuan before being built by a successful official, Wang Xianchen, in the Ming. Often sold, repaired, ruined and repaired again, it was used as an office of a revolutionary general during the Taiping rebellion." -- Keswick, Maggie. (2003). The Chinese Garden: History, Art, and Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 224 "Often in the city gardens the water is broken up into many small, scattered areas instead of flowing into one larger lake, on the Chinese principle of 'divide' and 'multiply'. The Zhuo Zheng Yuan in Suzhou is composed of as much water as land, and is famous for its complex, interconnecting pools. In fact it is almost a water-labyrinth - and much more difficult to unravel when one is actually in the garden than it is in plan. In the central part of this garden the islands in the lake are so large it impossible to see around them, and in the imagination the water may seem to flow away beyond them into infinity. Architecture divides and complements every different part with a network of covered bridges, pavilions on stilts, terrace-promontories and walls, so that each area of water seems quite unlike the others. The bright sparkle of the larger pools is contrasted with the cool and sombre pond behind the main reception hall, where the banks are built up steeply into rocky cliffs, and huge dark magnolias overshadow the surface. Beyond this the main water are flows on and around, under a room built over stilts, and into a peaceful backwater." -- Keswick, p. 18 Keywords: China, Jiangsu, lotus, Chinese garden, outdoor spaces, landscape. Submitted by Budiman Wiharja

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