Classical Gardens of Suzhou

Suzhou, a cultur-al and historical city in east China’s Jiangsu province, is celebrated around the world for its elegant gardens.

Spanning a peri-od of almost one thou-

sand years, from the Northern Song to the late Qing dynasties (11th-19th century), these gardens, most of them built by scholars, standardized many of the key features of classical Chinese gar-

den design with con-structed landscapes mimick-ing natural scenery of rocks, hills and rivers with strategically lo-cated pavilions and pa-godas.

P h o t o s b y C h e n J i a n x i n

Humble Administrator's Garden

拙 政 園 p i n y i n : Z h u ō z h è n g Y u á n

This garden was designed in collaboration with the renowned artist, Suzhou

native, and the owner’s friend, Wen Zhengming. It was as large as today’s garden

(which is 51,950 m2), with numerous trees and pavilions. The garden was named af-

ter a verse by Pan Yue’s Idler’s Prose, “I enjoy a carefree life by planting trees and

adopt a hermits life in the manner of Tao Yuanming. It took 16 years until

1526 CE to complete. Wen Zhenming wrote an essay Notes of Wang’s Humble

Administrator’s Garden, and painted Landscapes of the Humble Administra-

tor’s Garden in 1533 CE to commemorate the garden.

building my own house...I ir-

rigate my garden and grow

vegetables for me to eat...

such a life suits a retired of-

ficial like me well.” This verse

symbolized Wang’s desire

to retire from politics and

L inger ing Garden Lingering Garden is located outside the Changmen gate of Suzhou, Ji-

angsu province. It was commissioned by Xu Taishi, an impeached and later

exonerated official in 1593 CE. Stonemason Zhou Shicheng designed and

built the East Garden as it was initially called. The East Garden became fa-

mous in its day when the magistrates of Wu and Changzhou County both

praised the design of Shi Ping Peak, a rockery constructed to resemble Tian-

tai Mountain in Putao.

留 園 p i n y i n : L i ú Y u á n

Ownership passed to

Sheng Kang, a provincial trea-

surer of Hubei in 1873 CE. He

repaired the damaged caused

to the garden by the chaos of

the Taiping. After three years

the reconstruction was com-

plete in 1876 CE, and the gar-

den was renamed to Ligering

Garden, that is how we call it

today.

Master of the Nets Garden The Master of the Nets garden was first constructed in 1140 by Shi Zheng-

zhi the Deputy Civil Service Minster of the Southern Song Dynasty govern-

ment. Shi Zhengzhi was inspired by the simple and solitary life of a Chinese

網 師 園 p i n y i n : W ǎ n g s h ī Y u á n

a retired government official of the Qing Dynasty. He drastically re-

designed the garden and added multiple buildings, but retained the

spirit of the site. He often referred to himself as a fisherman and re-

named it the Master of the Nets Garden, as an allusion to the simple

life of a fisherman.Ownership passed to Qu Yuancun in 1795 and he

added and remodeling buildings, planted trees, and arranged stones.

fisherman depicted in

philosophical writings.

After his death the garden

passed through numer-

ous ownership and sub-

sequently fell into dis-

array until around 1785

when it was restored

by Song Zongyuan,

退 思 園 p i n y i n : T u ì s ī Y u á n

Retreat & Reflection Garden The garden was built in 1885 by Ren Lansheng an imperial offi-

cial working in Anhui province who was impeached. The name of the gar-

den comes from a verse by Zho Zhuan in Zhuo Qiuming’s Chronicles,

“Lin Fu is really a gentleman when he forwards proposals, he shows loy-

alty to his country, when he retreats he reflects and mends his ways”.

The garden was designed by Yuan Long a painter of the Wumen school. The design of this garden is inno-

vative in that it uses an east west

axis as the main axis as opposed

to the traditional north south axis.

The layout of buildings around the

pool in the main courtyard uses

the near-the-water style of plac-

ing the buildings back from the

waters edge and keeping the wa-

ter level high. This part of the gar-

den is named: “The Garden Float-

ing on Water.”

Welcome to ChinaWelcome to Su-zhou

中國·蘇州