Classical Chinese Garden Of Suzhou And Japanese Dry...

The Interpretation of Nature in Classical Chinese Garden of Suzhou and Japanese Dry Landscape Garden of Ryoan-ji Luis Barragà ¡n, the influential Mexican minimalist architect and Pritzker Prize winner once said that, â€Å"In the creation of a garden, the architect invites the partnership of the Kingdom of Nature. In a beautiful garden the majesty of nature is ever present, but it is nature reduced to human proportions and thus transformed into the most efficient haven against the aggressiveness of contemporary life.† Such design principle, with a strong emphasis on the unity of man and nature as a way to build freedom and independence in the natural environment of gardens away from the unrest social political atmosphere, has not only been seen in Western minimalist architecture, but also has been extensively utilized in Classical Asian architecture. Classical Chinese Garden of Suzhou and Japanese Dry Landscape Garden are two typical examples that demonstrate such harmonious coexistence between artificiality and nature. Thus, with a focus on a comparison between the selected examples of Humble Administrator’s Garden of Suzhou (see fig. 1) and Ryoan-ji Dry Landscape Garden (see fig. 2), this essay aims to analyze the design techniques of the two gardens and how they respond to their social political and religious environments by conveying different interpretations of nature. Garden of the Humble Administrator, which consists of numerous pavilions and bridges set among a maze of