GEC 2606 2010-2011 Semester 1 Research Paper: Corridors in Private and Royal Traditional Chinese Gardens

 

Xiaorui Huang

GEC 2606 Appreciation of Chinese Art

Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Research Paper

Score: A

Corridors in Private and Royal Traditional Chinese Gardens:
 

 A comparison in corridors between

The Humble Administrator’s Garden and The Summer Palace 

 

Widely acted as covered routes that provide visitors directional guidance as well as adequate weather protection, corridors are massively used in traditional Chinese gardens (Chen, 2001). However, differences exist in some specific aspects of corridors between royal and private gardens in China. In this essay, I will refer to the Humble Administrator’s Garden and the Summer Palace as the representatives of private and royal gardens and make a comparison between the corridors in these two gardens. Firstly, the common points between them will be discussed and interpreted. Then I will mainly focus on the distinctions and finally a conclusion will be drawn.

Similarities in the corridors between the Summer Palace and the Humble Administrator’s Garden mainly lie in the roof structure and materials. Firstly, the roof structure designs of corridors in these two gardens are almost identical. As shown in Figure 1, the corridor roofs in both two gardens are supported by two layers of timber joists that are connected by hangers. Besides, two timber purlins are placed on the top of the second joist to support the upper section of rafters. This roof design actually involves the concept of a flying bird which could be dated back to the Shang Dynasty (Lam, 2001). As a classical architectural element created by the Shang rulers, the “flying bird” design expresses a feeling of floating in the air (Lam, 2001). Since roofs act as overhead shields, it is necessary to create a sense of secure that they will not collapse. The “flying bird” design fulfills this requirement because it gives people an impression of floating. Consequently, this design was widely adopted by architects to both private and royal architects during the history of Chinese traditional architecture.

 

Figure 1 Roof structure and flying bird. The Humble Administrator’s Garden (upper left);

The Summer Palace (upper right)

Along with the roof structure, in the Humble Administrator’s Garden and the Summer Palace, same materials (i.e. timber) were applied to build the corridors roof and pillars. The use of timber is also partly related with the sense of secure. Compared with other common construction materials like stones and bricks, timber is the lightest and is more suitable to build “flying-bird-roof’ that express the feeling of floating (Lam, 2001). In contrast, heavier brick and stone will somewhat make people feel unsecure once applied as roof materials (Lam, 2001). Besides, timbers are easier to get, manufacture and construct than stones and bricks. Considering these advantages of timber, the massive use of it on corridor roofs in both the Humble Administrator’s Garden and the Summer Palace is understandable.

Though the roof structure and materials are similar, corridors in the Humble Administrator’s Garden and in the Summer Palace distinguishes from each other. The corridor type, route and color style are the three major differences between them.

The most fundamental contrast lies in the corridor types. In the Humble Administrator’s Garden, most corridors are supported by timber columns on one side and a brick wall on the other side. And there is a parallel corridor on the other side of the wall (as shown in Figure 2). According to Wang (2009), this type of corridor is named double corridor and can provide the functions of both corridors and partition walls. In private gardens, it is commonly applied to “extend the space”. Generally, the spaces of private gardens are limited. If there is no partition, the whole garden can be seen by visitors at one single place, which directly unveils the limited scale of the garden and is unimaginative and inferior (Chen & Yu, 1986). By using a double corridor, only one side of scenery could be appreciated by the visitors when they walk on it and they have to go through the corridors on the other side of the wall if they want to see the scenery there. This method “forces” visitors to cover the same route twice and significantly extend the “visitable zones” in the limited space. In addition, to reduce the tedium caused by the monochromatic walls, window openings with engraved decoration were created. The scenery on the other side of the wall may give visitors particular impressions through these openings, which is also an effective way to attract visitors (Zhang, 1991).

Figure 2 Double corridor in the Humble Administrator’s Garden

Different from the Humble Administrator’s Garden, the open corridor instead of the double corridor is the major type erected in the Summer Palace (Figure 3). An open corridor refers to those that have both two sides supported by columns (Zhang, 1991). The main purpose to apply open corridors is to provide a weather-proof pathway without obstruct the sight from one side of the corridor to the other. Besides, visitors in an open corridor can appreciate scenes on both sides. The widely use of it in the Summer Palace is related with the natural condition of the garden as well as the dominant and egocentric characteristics of the rulers.                          

 

 Figure 3 open corridor in the Summer Palace

For natural condition, the Summer Palace is of large space and contains substantial natural sceneries. Compared to their counterparts in the private gardens, those scenic spots in the Summer Palace are in much larger amount and scale （(anon),Dan Qing Tu Shu You Xian Gong Si, 1987）. Thus, space extending techniques like partition are basically unnecessary. Moreover, the use of partition may further damage the grand landscape of the real mountains and rivers. Considering the dominant and egocentric personalities of imperial family (they tended to remove or destroy whatever hinders them), the non-sight-obstructing open corridors are much more favorable than double corridors in royal gardens like the Summer Palace.

The corridor routes in these two gardens are also of conspicuous difference. In the Humble Administrator’s Garden, designers intentionally applied turnings and gradients to the corridors and made them highly tortuous and waved. According to Ji Cheng[1] and his famous book Yuan Ye (The craft of garden), this design greatly infuses changeability to visitors’ view. Specifically, when walking in the tortuous corridors, the viewers’ sight scenery will keep changing in direction. Thus, scene “varies” as viewers move, which creates a “dynamic” topography in the garden (Chen & Yu, 1986). Besides, bended design of corridors could also create a sense of space stretching for visitors. This is achieved because twisty corridors together with partition walls, groves and rockeries separate the space into many different isolated parts （(anon),Dan Qing Tu Shu You Xian Gong Si, 1987）. As shown in Figure 4, when walking through tortuous corridors, visitors will encounter these particular sceneries one by one and each one can give them a brand new impression. Consequently, visitors will gain a feeling that they have gone through several different spaces instead of only one in the straight-corridor-case. Since private gardens are generally quite small, this space-extending esign

is of great significance and is commonly applied.       

 

 

 Fgure 4 the Humble Administrator’s Garden (upper); the Summer Palace (middle); Model of straight corridors and zigzag corridors (bottom)

In contrast, having the Long Corridor as the representative, corridors in the Summer Palace are relatively straight and flat. Though Chen (2001) pointed out that the route of the Long Corridor undulates with terrain elevation of south Longevity Mountain and shoreline of the Kunming Lake, it is far less tortuous than its counterparts in private gardens. As mentioned before, “extending space” is less important in the Summer Palace. Instead, providing convenient, comfortable and weather-proof transport channel to connect scenic spots that disperse in a large area comes to the first priority. With a relatively straight route to achieve shorter length and four pavilions for rest, the Long Corridor fulfills this requirement. Besides, as architecture in a royal garden, the Long Corridor (Figure 5) is grand because of its straightness and symmetry. This somewaht reveals its owner’s dominance and elegance.

Figure 5 the symmetry of Long Corridor (Retrieved from Google Map)

Color style of corridor is another significant factor that differ the Humble Administrator’s Garden and the Summer Palace. In general, most corridors in the Humble Administrator’s Garden are painted in black, grey and white style whereas in the Summer Palace they are much more colorful. For private garden especially those in Suzhou and Hangzhou, designers intended to make them places for living in seclusion. This could be deduced from these gardens’ names like the Humble Administrator’s Garden and the Master of Net Garden[2]. Therefore, stressed by Ji Cheng, simplicity, plainness and tranquility are fundamental elements that should be employed in garden design. Explained by Chen & Yu (1986), designers were supposed to “pursue tastefulness and eschew vulgarity” (p.35). Regarding the tinting, on one hand, the natural colors of materials themselves are highly preferred （(anon),Dan Qing Tu Shu You Xian Gong Si, 1987）. Even in the cases that painting is necessary, designers tended to choose colors like black, grey and white that are consistent with the environment without standing out. On the other hand, showy stuffs like bright red column repel the principle of simplicity and were disgusted by private garden designers (Chen & Yu, 1986). Based on this reason, vivid colors were excluded in the corridors of the Humble Administrator’s Garden.

Unlike the Humble Administrator’s Garden, the color style of the Long Corridors in the Summer Palace is gorgeous. Apart from its amazing length, the diverse color paintings on beams, lintels and purlins are exactly what it is famous for. In all its 273 sectors and 4 pavilions which have a total length of 728 meters, over 14000 paintings including landscapes, flowers and birds and narrative painting of Chinese traditional literatures are drawn (Figure 6) (Beijing Summer Palace Administration Office & Department of Architecture of Qinghua University, 1981). The color patterns of each sector are similar and red, green and blue are widely used to paint the structure members. Though this style is completely unacceptable from private-garden-designers’ perspective, it is consistent with the royal custom. As a royal garden with an emperor’s office area, the overall color use on the architecture in the Summer Palace resembles that of the Forbidden City- red, gold, green and blue. Thus, the Long Corridor mainly painted in red, green and blue coordinated with this imperial color style very well. It is also worth noting that the purpose of building royal garden also counts for the Summer Garden’s vivid color use. Distinguish from private gardens, royal gardens are mainly built for the imperial family to entertain but not living in seclusion. It is understandable that for the emperor there is no pursuance for seclusion, which makes Ji Cheng’s simplicity principle unnecessary. To please the emperor, designers applied flamboyant paintings and patterns to make the Long Corridor extremely gorgeous.

 

Figure 6 Color painting and decoration on the corridors in the Summer Palace

To sum up, corridors in the Humble Administrator’s Garden and the Summer Palace have their roof structure design and materials in common while the differences include the corridor type, route and color style. The roots of these features are related to the gardens’ environmental condition, function and designers’ intention. Nevertheless, further studies may be required to provide a more comprehensive analysis.

Reference:

Beijing Summer Palace Administration Office & Department of Architecture of Qinghua University (1981). Summer Palace. Beijing: Zhaohua Publishing House.

Chen, C. Z. (2001). Zhongguo yuan lin jian shang ci dian. [Dictionary of Chinese garden appreciateion]. Shanghai: Hua Dong Shi Fan Da Xue Chu Ban She.

Chen, L. F. & Yu, S. L. (1986). The garden art of China. Hong Kong: Timber Press.

Ji, C. (1988). The craft of gardens. (A. Hardie, Trans) New Haven: Yale University Press. 

Lam, L. S. (2001). Origins and development of the traditional Chinese roof. Lewiston, N.Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press.

Liu, Z. P. (2000). Zhongguo jian zhu lei xing ji jie gou (3rd Edn).[Types and structures of Chinese architecture.] Beijing: Zhongguo Gong Ye Chu Ban She.

Shao, Z. (2001). The art of Suzhou classical gardens. Beijing: China Forestry Publishing House.

Wang, Q. J. (2009). An illustrated dictionary of architecture. Beijing: China Machine Press.

Yu, C. H. (2006). English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionary of architecture. Shanghai: Shanghai Jiao Tong Da Xue Chu Ban She.

Zhang, C. A. (1994). Zhongguo yuan lin yi shu ci dian. [Dictionary of Chinese garden art.] Wuhan: Hubei Ren Min Chu Ban She.

 (anon) (1987). Zhongguo yuan lin jian zhu yan jiu. [Study of Chinese garden architecture.] Taipei: Dan Qing Tu Shu You Xian Gong Si.

 (anon) (2007). Suzhou yuan lin liu ji [videorecording]. Taibei Xian Zhonghe Shi: Tai Sheng Duo Mei Ti Gu Fen You Xian Gong Si.

Summer palace- China (c. 2010). Retrieved November 13, 2010 from, Administrative office of the Summer Palace Web site: http://www.summerpalace-china.com/en/attractions2.html

The Summer Palace Beijing- Google maps (c. 2010). Retrieved November 23, 2010 Web site: http://maps.google.com.hk/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

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[1] Ji Cheng (1582-?), famous garden designer in late period of the Ming Dynasty. He composed <Yuan Ye> (the craft of garden) which the earliest comprehensive guide book of garden art (Zhang, 1994).

[2] “Master of net” means fisher (Shao, 2001)