Expert statement on Chinese gardens Alison Hardie, MA (Oxford), MA (Edinburgh), DPhil (Sussex) I am a Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds, and Director of the National Institute for Chinese Studies, White Rose East Asia Centre. I am also a Senior Fellow in Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, WashingtonDC, USA (affiliated to HarvardUniversity). In 1988 my translation of the 17th‐century Chinese treatise on garden design, Yuanye, was published as The Craft of Gardens by Yale University Press (2nd edition, Shanghai: Better Link Press, 2012). Since that time, I have carried out research into Chinese garden history, with numerous publications, lectures and conference papers for both specialist and lay audiences. I have presented academic papers and public lectures on Chinese gardensin the UK, USA, China, Japan and the Netherlands. I am regarded internationally as a leading Western expert on Chinese gardens. The style of Chinese gardens is underpinned by Chinese culture and philosophy, and is quite unlike the European garden tradition. Chinese gardens varied widely across time, region and function, but had important elements in common. They would always include the elements of buildings, rocks, water and plants, including flowers, shrubs and specimen trees. Most modern scholars make a distinction between the ‘scholars’ garden’ and ‘imperial garden’ as two distinct types of Chinese garden. So‐called scholars’ gardens were privately owned (usually, though not always, by members of the governing scholar‐gentry class) while imperial gardens were the property of the emperor or members of the imperial family and were located in North China, within reach of the capital. There are considerable differences in style between the two types. What is thought of as the ‘classical’ Chinese garden is the scholars’ garden type, which is particularly associated with the Yangtze delta region, including Jiangsu province (traditionally China’s richest region, both economically and culturally). This is the type of garden which has been reproduced outside China, and is presumably the type which is being proposed for this project, particularly in view of the twinning between Essex and Jiangsu. Scholars’ gardens can be of any size, depending on the space available; for example, the Lingering Garden (Liu yuan), one of the largest gardens in Suzhou, is about 2 hectares in area, while the Master of the Nets Garden (Wangshi yuan) is about 0.6 ha, and the Mountain Villa of Embracing Beauty (Huanxiu shanzhuang), a very small garden, is less than 0.2 ha. Because Chinese gardens were intended to represent the cosmos, which in Chinese philosophy is a balance of complementaryyin and yang (the female and male principles respectively), they must contain both water (yin) and ‘mountains’ (yang). Water usually takes the form of a more or less central pond, which may be quite extensive, as well as smaller ponds (if space is available) and watercourses which may actually feed and drain the pond or may be purely decorative rather than functional. In the Yangtze delta, which is threaded with irrigation channels, canals etc., water is (or has been) readily available, but in less well‐watered locations, watercourses and ponds have to be excavated and supplied artificially, possibly involving the pumping of water uphill. A body of water would, in my opinion, be an essential part of a Chinese garden to be constructed as part of this project, and would therefore, as I understand it, require specific planning permission. The ‘mountains’ in a Chinese garden take the form of single large rocks or rockery structures generally composed either of Lake Tai (Taihu) rocks (limestone) or huang rocks (sedimentary rocks; sandstone). These rockeries are substantial structures which require expert craftsmen to design and construct them. They help to create variation in height over the area of the garden. I understand that the soil in the area of the proposed project is Essex loam, with no rocks; in order to create an authentic Chinese garden, therefore, rocks would have to be brought in, and would inevitably be inconsistent with the geological character of the local landscape. Within Chinese culture, gardens are conceptualised as an aspect of architecture, rather than being related to botany, as in the West. Chinese gardens include a substantial amount of construction in the form of halls, belvederes, pavilions, covered walkways, walls, etc., much more closely spaced than comparable structures in European gardens (for example the various ‘temples’ and pavilions at Studley Royal). A high surrounding wall would be a normal feature, enclosing the garden and concealing it from passers‐by. The buildings in a Chinese garden, which took a variety of forms (rectangular, circular, hexagonal etc.), were usually multi‐functional and there were very few buildings with a single defined purpose (other than libraries, religious shrines and, at a later date, theatre stages). The larger or more important buildings would usually (although not always) be oriented towards the south (as is normal in Chinese architecture), but others might, for example, be open on all sides. It is normal to have buildings of varying heights, since variation is an important aspect of Chinese garden architecture. Some might be visible from outside the garden (over the surrounding wall). In a garden of the ‘scholars’ garden’ type, the buildings would normally have whitewashed brick walls, with grey tiled roofs and woodwork painted in dark red lacquer, thus presenting a largely monochrome appearance. Gardens in North China, particularly imperial gardens, tend to have much brighter coloured painting on the buildings. In planting, tastes appear to have varied considerably over time, but at the present day, floral displays in Chinese gardens often involve masses of bright colours (e.g. chrysanthemums or herbaceous peonies). ‘Tea‐houses’ were never a feature of traditional Chinese gardens, unlike Japanese gardens, which often include a pavilion specifically intended for performance of the Japanese tea ceremony. Tea ceremonies have not been a feature of mainstream Chinese culture for many centuries (though they do survive in the regional culture of Fujian, a great distance from the Yangtze delta). I am therefore surprised to see a reference to tea ceremonies as ‘relevant demonstrations’ in the proposed Chinese garden, and reference to ‘an authentic Chinese Garden with a tea pavilion’; in my opinion, a designated tea pavilion in itself would render the garden inauthentic. Individual buildings in Chinese gardens at the present day have sometimes been turned into commercial tea‐houses, as in the Garden of Cultivation (Yipu) in Suzhou, but that is a modern innovation resulting from the conversion of a private garden to a public park, and has nothing to do with tea ceremonies. I see that there is a ‘Chinese tea‐house’ in the Chinese garden of the Luisenpark in Mannheim, Germany, but judging by photographs this is a building suitable for members of the public to go and drink tea in, rather than a pavilion for the performance of tea ceremonies. Other gardens such as the Lan Su Yuan in Portland, Oregon, also have facilities to provide Chinese tea to visitors on a commercial basis. As indicated above, specimen trees are important features in Chinese gardens. Those which occur most typically in the scholar‐garden type are lacebark pines, camphor trees, willows, wutong trees, magnolias etc. There is debate about whether it is desirable to use local species in Chinese gardens constructed in other countries, or whether only Chinese species should be planted. Obviously the introduction of Chinese species affects the nature of the landscape and the local ecology, while the use of local species means that the garden is not strictly ‘authentic’, so a decision has to be made on this issue; I see no evidence that this point has been taken into consideration in the project proposal. Most Chinese gardens constructed in recent years in the West are located in cities with a substantial ethnic‐Chinese population, whether long‐established or the result of recent immigration, such as Sydney, Vancouver, New York, Portland and Los Angeles. From my knowledge and experience, these gardens depend very much on the support of their local ethnic‐Chinese communities for direct fund‐
raising (to fund initial construction, further development, on‐going maintenance, and related activities) and for naming garden buildings and features and providing calligraphic inscriptions for them (both essential to an authentic Chinese garden), as well as for cultural events which attract visitors to the gardens, such as musical performances, art exhibitions, lectures on aspects of Chinese culture, children’s activities related to Chinese New Year etc. (as performers and presenters). As I understand it, the ethnic Chinese population of Colchester is about 1,690, and that of Essex as a whole about 6,360; this is certainly not the kind of critical mass to provide effective support to the garden. I note that the project proposal refers to ‘relevant demonstrations within the garden’ but there is no indication of how these would be organised, provided or funded. I am not aware of any case of a Chinese garden outside China where such demonstrations or cultural activities are provided on a long‐term basis by any organisation within China, as opposed to being arranged for a limited period (e.g. during the course of a garden festival, if that is the context in which the Chinese garden is created), and from my experience of Chinese business practices, I believe it most unlikely that any Chinese organisation would be prepared to do this without substantial fees.In addition, as the Chinese gardens elsewhere are in urban locations, they can rely on a certain amount of ‘passing trade’ rather than depending entirely on visitors making a deliberate decision to travel to see them. Furthermore, the presence of a substantial Chinese community means that there is some familiarity with the idea of Chinese gardens, which encourages people to visit. Knowledge of Chinese gardens among the UK population, however, is in my experience practically non‐existent, and in my opinion very few British people would be interested in visiting a Chinese garden, certainly not more than once, unless there was a very intensive programme of cultural events to attract them there, which would require considerable time, effort and money to organise. It is a fact that Chinese garden style – or rather the European interpretation of it – had a considerable influence on the development of the English landscape garden. The European fashion for chinoiserie had some influence; the ‘House of Confucius’ (no longer extant) and the pagoda in Kew Gardens are examples of this taste, but have much more to do with European enthusiasm for the exotic than with anything authentically Chinese (a pagoda would never normally be placed in a garden). The most important influence from China came about through the descriptions written by Jesuit missionaries at the Chinese court in the 18th century, such as Jean‐Denis Attiret in his famous letter of 1749, and illustrations such as the set of engravings of ‘Views of Jehol’ by Matteo Ripa (c.1712). What these writers and artists were describing were the imperial gardens of the capital, Peking [Beijing], and of the imperial summer retreat at Jehol [Rehe, present‐day Chengde] north of Peking, which were very extensive, in rural or semi‐rural locations, and in the case of Jehol intended as a hunting park as much as a garden for leisure. These gardens were very different from the classic ‘scholars’ gardens’ of the Yangtze delta area, e.g. in Suzhou, which were mostly in urban locations and therefore limited in size. The typical Chinese garden as reproduced in Western countries in recent years is of the ‘scholars’ garden’ type, and thus has no connection with the development of the English landscape garden. In any case, the rural landscapes depicted by Constable and relevant to this project are agricultural landscapes and not the uncultivated parkland as designed by landscape artists such as Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, which were consciously influenced by Western interpretations of Chinese imperial landscapes (as well as other factors). In my opinion, therefore, no justification can be made for including a Chinese garden of the scholar‐garden type in this project on the grounds that it has anything to do with the English landscape, particularly not as depicted by Constable. There does not appear to be any rationale for the garden to be located in this area. To my knowledge, the majority of Chinese gardens outside China have been constructed by one specialist company based in Suzhou, the Suzhou Institute of Landscape Architectural Design, who provide plans, the labour force, and most of the materials required for construction (it is impossible to source items like Chinese roof‐tiles outside China, and many of the timber elements are prefabricated and carved in China). Their pool of expert craftsmen is necessarily limited and as wages and other costs rise in China, the cost of constructing Chinese gardens overseas is bound to rise. Plans have to be adapted for each site, and there may be local requirements which involve changes to their standard patterns. For example, at the Garden of Flowing Fragrance in California all the building structures had to be adapted to conform to Californian earthquake‐proofing standards, which added enormously to the cost; obviously this particular problem would not arise in the UK, but they also had to raise the height of the balustrades on all the bridges over the watercourses, in order to conform to local health and safety standards, as traditional Chinese balustrades are very low (or non‐existent on some bridges). Alterations such as these to the standard items supplied by the Chinese company can add considerably to the budget and need to be taken into consideration at an early stage. I see no evidence from the information available to me that this has been taken into consideration for this project. I do not believe it would now be possible for an authentic Chinese garden, even on a small scale, to be completed for the suggested sum of £1.5‐2 million, once the cost of design, materials and labour, and the expense of importing materials and transporting and accommodating the skilled labour force from China have been taken into account. It is unlikely that the construction of the garden would create local jobs for the reasons detailed above.