全 文 ：The Best of Both Worlds
———Building Gardens With a Sense of Place
Patricia D. RAVEN*
(Missouri Botanical Garden, USA)
Abstract: The last decade in China has been a period of great growth and renewal. More and more public garden
has been built, many those gardens are built with Western鄄influenced styles and lack of Chinese factor. A garden
with a strong sense of place will clearly put the visitor in a specific locality by astute use of design to support a dis鄄
tinctive regional character. Here the author gives several examples of famous gardens about how to keep the sense of
place and try to give some useful suggestion on Chinese garden build.
Key words: Garden; The sense of place; Chinese regional style; Chinese garden style
CLC number: TU 986摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 Document Code: A摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 Article ID: 2095-0845(2011)01-024-07
摇 The last decade in China has been a period of
great growth and renewal. Resource commitments to
public gardens have increased significantly in this
time, with many institutions broadening their mis鄄
sions in public display and education for the benefit
of their communities. Learning and teaching about
plants and their important role in our lives has be鄄
come more important for us all as concerns about en鄄
vironmental health have intensified.
In the rush to build bigger and better gardens,
the personality and character that has made the old,
historic gardens of China so popular has been dimin鄄
ished. The sense of place has been lost as new gar鄄
dens are built with Western鄄influenced styles. Some
aspects of the new gardens have become design鄄gen鄄
eral, lacking in visible geographic placement keys;
they might be physically located anywhere in the
world if one was to draw only on the architectural
clues as to locale. A garden with a strong sense of
place will clearly put the visitor in a specific locality
by astute use of design to support a distinctive re鄄
gional character.
It is possible to have the best of both worlds. A
new garden can be designed to benefit from the ex鄄
periences of Western gardens with well鄄developed
plans for visitor services, children忆s activities, inter鄄
nal transportation modes and public safety issues to
develop a program. The incorporation of these West鄄
ern concepts does not require the abandonment of
the traditional Chinese style, but rather a carefully
crafted union between Eastern aesthetics and West鄄
ern programming. It is possible to marry the two sys鄄
tems, with modern programs delivered successfully
in a classical Oriental setting (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1摇 Signpost at Nimrod Fortress National Park, Israel
(Photo Pat Raven襂2008)
摇 摇 Garden design in many diverse countries fre鄄
quently copies Western historic styles, thus losing
the unique local character that makes gardens spe鄄
植 物 分 类 与 资 源 学 报摇 2011, 33 (1): 24 ~ 30
Plant Diversity and Resources摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 DOI: 10. 3724 / SP. J. 1143. 2011. 10240
* Author for correspondence; E鄄mail: pat. raven@ mobot. org
Received date: 2010-12-17, Accepted date: 2011-01-04
cial. My passion is to seek out and treasure the orig鄄
inal and unique. Many of you have hosted me and
my camera in your gardens and wild areas and
helped me to learn and understand the special per鄄
sonality that makes a particular garden memorable.
Reading the landscape -What is regional
vernacular?
The particular local architecture and planting
style specific to an area is called regional vernacu鄄
lar; it helps to create the sense of place that tells
you why a particular garden is special to its locale.
Learning how to read the landscape is learning to rec鄄
ognize and treasure the design elements of a garden
style that make it different and individual. Original
designs based in traditional styles and local materials
can engender a sense of place. To understand this
concept, look around your own area for design inspi鄄
ration. Try to identify:
Local specialty plants
Classical stone design
Historical symbols and folklore references
Local craftsmanship
Artistic and musical inspirations
Vernacular design evolves over time with the
distinctive contributions of regional cultural traditions
and local environment.
Trends in contemporary landscape design are
moving away from the heavy footprint of human ma鄄
nipulation and returning to more subtle and subservi鄄
ent interpretations of design. In the history of West鄄
ern style landscaping, cows and sheep created the o鄄
riginal clipped lawn and deer sculpted the shaped
hedges and topiaries. These signature styles have
become associated with the “classic冶 English land鄄
scape. While this gardening form epitomizes the re鄄
gional vernacular of England and is perfectly suited
to the natural environment in the British Isles, it
looks awkward and out鄄of鄄place when literally trans鄄
lated to other parts of the world.
Equally difficult to replicate and appreciate a鄄
broad are the forced landscapes of classic French
17 th Century gardens. These rigidly formal land鄄
scapes were based in geometry and power鄄man忆 s
power over nature鄄to level earth and align trees in
geometrical perfection. Hugely expensive to create
and maintain, these gardens also symbolized money
and power.
Travel makes it much easier to spot the particu鄄
lar materials and craftsmanship that are unique only
to each different region. It is the one鄄of鄄a鄄kind com鄄
bination of social history, traditional construction
style and local materials that produce our most en鄄
gaging regional garden landscapes.
Crafting a master plan
It is important to understand the strategic goals
and needs for our facilities so that we may plan and
build as well as possibly. The physical facilities to
support research, educational and public visitor
needs are different. Finding the proper balance be鄄
tween collections assembled for conservation and re鄄
search purposes, landscape art and horticulture and
public access and enjoyment may be challenging:
the purposes need to be met in different ways from
one institution to another. As garden missions broad鄄
en to include biodiversity and plant conservation pro鄄
grams, plant collection guidelines will shift and the
kinds of plants put out for public display will
change. Placing these varied functions within a
beautiful, aesthetically successful landscape does not
happen by accident, but is the result of excellence
in planning and design.
A comprehensive planning document-a Master
Plan-is essential to create appropriate guidelines for
the consistent future development of the property as
a whole. Such a Master Plan should be based on an
institution忆s Mission Statement and take into account
the garden忆 s audience and location. This Master
Plan must be strong yet flexible in order to guide the
process of planning for years to come, and it should
be modified as it is executed and developed over the
years.
The landscape planning process for botanical
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gardens includes the development of the physical
framework, the infrastructure of water, power, road鄄
ways that service the garden.
Historically, botanical gardens all over the
world have grown like clumps of bamboo with a run鄄
ner here and a shoot there, these growing in a ran鄄
dom pattern as funding is available. Now, botanical
gardens have greater resources and larger responsi鄄
bilities making the lack of long鄄range planning a
more serious problem. A given amount of resources
used wisely may result in a lovely, seamless vision;
the same amount of money and other resources used
unwisely can lead to a choppy, discontinuous patch鄄
work.
The Missouri Botanical Garden忆 s Master Plan
might be used as one model or example and in鄄
cludes:
Plans based on a clear Mission Statement
First plan developed in 1972, is reviewed fre鄄
quently and revised every few years
Design team includes garden staff, trustees and
MTR design firm
Includes input from the public
Unifies the vision for all
Gives structure, like a spine, to the body of the
garden
Guides everyday management decisions
Sets style standards
Allows for changing needs and new technologies
Allows for long鄄range infrastructure planning
New gardens fit within the existing framework
Every garden will have a different balance of mis鄄
sion, audience, product and financial opportunity.
Successful design鄄creating a signature style
A strong design concept may also incorporate
the idea of a signature style, a unique approach to
linking elements within a larger plan. Items that may
be included in such a signature style grouping would
include logos, color schemes and type faces for sig鄄
nage; consistent imagery and overall continuity; and
cohesiveness for the entire design palette.
Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsyl鄄
vania, is known worldwide for its fountain displays.
In both French and Italian styles, these great water鄄
works provide a distinctive garden element. Special鄄
ly constructed Open Air Theatre Fountains and com鄄
puter鄄controlled dancing fountains create a platform
for entertainment and special events. Longwood has
built a visitor program around these wonderful water
features including the annual Festival of Fountains
and July Fireworks & Fountains celebration of our
national holiday.
Color and texture statements have been used to
create signature looks. The great English landscape
designer Gertrude Jekyll used a painterly approach to
her garden designs. Heavily influenced by Impres鄄
sionist art, and especially by JMW Turner忆 s fluid
style, she used a subtle palette of floral and foliage
to create magnificent floral borders. Another very
distinctive style was that developed by Roberto Burle
Marx. He is credited with bringing modernist land鄄
scape architecture to Brazil. With strong lines, trop鄄
ical textures and brilliant colors, Marx忆s landscapes
are unforgettable.
A consistent design palette unifies the garden
and creates an elegant cohesion linking together are鄄
as of diverse function. Jumping styles frequently in
garden design is not restful or pleasing. Think of a
building a wall鄄color, framing, dimensions鄄as a base
for individual pieces of art to hang on it. The master
plan provides that wall and the individual gardens in
it are the paintings.
Special exhibits and focused programs
The Missouri Botanical Garden has made a con鄄
scious effort to plan areas and events for special pur鄄
poses. We designed and built a Children忆 s Garden
when we wanted to increase the attendance and in鄄
volvement of families with young children. The gar鄄
den theme is specific to our region with a design for鄄
mat of frontier St. Louis at the time of Henry Shaw,
our founder, in the mid鄄1850忆s. Writer Richard Louv
has made it clear that the environmentalist of tomor鄄
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row is the child who learns to love nature today.
Our signature autumn event is called The Best of
Missouri Market and is a craft sale with food and
products all made or grown within a few hundred kilo鄄
meters of our garden. While we do present exhibits
that are not Missouri鄄specific, there is some natural
connection to the garden world. Our Chihuly glass
show featured many plant and animal forms and was
carefully staged to integrate into the landscape of the
existing gardens. Change of this kind makes for fresh鄄
ness and helps maintain visitor interest (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2摇 Good planning can help solve design challenges
(Photo by Pat Raven襂2008)
Regional planning challenges鄄case studies
Solving the unique demands of incorporating
large numbers of people into living collections can
make for some enjoyable design challenges. Using
local materials and creative fabrication to satisfy spe鄄
cial needs can provide a ready means for expressing
the regional vernacular. Some examples of sensitive
development that support the idea of sense of place
are included in the following figures.
Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland (Fig. 3,
4 and 5)
Public safety is a keen issue in this heavily visi鄄
ted natural area. The attraction is the broad vista
with a dramatic wave of 700 foot cliffs sweeping
down to the ocean. Several bird nesting colonies
draw people to try to look over the edge for a better
view. The challenge is that this “edge冶 has not been
clearly defined and, in the past, ten to twelve peo鄄
ple each year fell to their deaths by getting too
close. The solution includes a carefully crafted wall
channeling pedestrians from one overlook platform to
another keeping them a safe distance from the edge
of the cliff. By using local stone slabs in overlapping
plates, the wall echoes the vista of overlapping
cliffs. Further interpretation placed the new, large
visitor center underground. This placement is clearly
subservient to the natural landscape and made it pos鄄
sible to preserve the pastoral scenery with grazing
cows. The design clues are taken directly from the
natural landscape, illustrating a newer way of think鄄
ing about our relationship with nature.
Fig. 3摇 Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland
(Photo by Pat Raven襂2010)
Fig. 4摇 Landscape design retaining wall uses overlapping plates
of native stone to mirror the layering of the cliffs beyond
(Photo by Pat Raven襂2010)
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Fig. 5摇 New Visitor Center designed to disappear into the landscape and not compete with the
natural beauty of the cliffs beyond (Photo by Pat Raven襂2010)
Wadi Hitan, Valley of Whales, UNESCO World
Heritage site, Egypt (Fig. 6)
These visitor comfort buildings are deliberately
subservient to a grand landscape that features both
magnificent eroded stone columns and significant pal鄄
eontological research sites. They were designed to
disappear completely into the broader landscape.
Built only of local materials and inexpensively with
local labor, the design imitates the natural form of the
wind鄄swept stone pillars and is finished in a stucco
pattern that matches their color and texture. Further
enhancement comes from the shadow patterns cast by
the woven willow shades, made of materials collected
from a nearby oasis. Very inexpensive and elegant,
these shelters fit perfectly into the scenery.
Bloedel Reserve, Bainbridge Island, Washington
State (Fig. 7)
With an emphasis on the natural landscape and
serene visitor experience, Bloedel limits visitors to
20 per hour. Mostly informal in style, the more con鄄
structed formal gardens fall within woodlands and
wetlands like pearls on a necklace. Experiencing na鄄
ture quietly is central to the program in this garden
and, to that end, visitors are allowed into sensitive
areas by special boardwalks designed for protecting
both native vegetation and natural water flow. Like
the Missouri Botanical Garden, Bloedel was planned
by MTR.
Fig. 6摇 Sun shelter for visitors make by local craftsmen using
native materials to echo the surroundings at the UNESCO
World Heritage site Wadi Hitan (Valley of Whales), Egypt
and not compete with it (Photo by Pat Raven襂2008)
Fig. 7摇 Shaded walkway with sloped paving for harvesting rain
water in the dry Negev Desert campus of the Albert Katz
International School for Desert Studies of the Ben鄄Gurion
University, Israel (Photo by Pat Raven襂2008)
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Jacob Blaustein institutes for desert research,
Ben鄄Gurion University, Israel (Fig. 8)
摇 摇 This research facility was designed to facilitate
desert studies including water resources, agriculture
and desert architecture. The modern campus, loca鄄
ted in the Negev Desert, is a great example of a plan
that exhibits a strong regional vernacular. Structures
are built entirely of local stone but with a modern ar鄄
chitectural style to maximize shading and water col鄄
lection. The local environment is very hot and dry,
so landscaping is done with a selection of plants from
the wild, often with ancient uses, and a tolerance
for harsh growing conditions.
All of these examples show a new concept in
landscaping鄄that man忆s concept of dominion over the
earth is changing and landscape designs are now being
Fig. 8摇 Elevated boardwalk at Bloedel Reserve protects plants and
natural water flow, yet allows access to unique environments
by pedestrians (Photo by Pat Raven襂2005)
Fig. 9摇 Simple, elegant, ancient stonework from the UNESCO
World Heritage Site Classical Gardens of Suzhou
(Photo by Pat Raven襂2005)
created that are in a more complete harmony with
nature as it exists in the particular area. Living
lightly on the land, formerly a visionary concept,
becomes increasingly necessary with every passing
year. We tend to think now in terms of editing and
enhancing the landscape and not of altering it com鄄
pletely. Perhaps we are realizing that we are a part
of the world and not its masters.
What is the Chinese regional style?
Some of the design elements that are associated
with the Chinese landscape tradition are tall thin irreg鄄
ular stones, clumps of bamboo, the ample use of bam鄄
boo for architecture, lovely handmade tiles and elegant
stonework of all kinds (Fig. 9, 10). Color has strong
traditional meaning in China, with Imperial Yellow and
Fig. 10摇 Contemporary interpretation of traditional stonework
path in Suzhou (Photo by Pat Raven襂2005)
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Chinese Red having particularly strong significance.
The Chinese vernacular style includes many el鄄
ements鄄stone, water, reflection, and in urban are鄄
as, a sense of enclosure. There are just as many re鄄
gional variations to garden design as there are to
Chinese cooking. Just as the presence or absence of
spices may indicate origin, the stone styles, water
forms and plant selections link historic garden de鄄
signs to the area of the country to which they are n鄄
ative or where they have developed the most horti鄄
culturally. One of my favorite stylistic devices is the
use of water as second canvas for doubling the art of
architecture, sky and plants.
The artisans of China have elevated the design
of stone and tile paving styles to the level of fine art.
This is a very special and unique craft that has e鄄
volved over centuries of garden design. The crafts鄄
men who design and install these beautiful mosaics
must be treasured and honored as gardens are devel鄄
oped. Do not lose this signature style element!
The development of the courtyard garden was
partly in response to increasing urban population
density and the desire to delimit personal space. The
boundary walls created a sense of enclosure and peace,
separating private garden space from public thorou鄄
ghfares. Internal walls pierced with decorative tile
panels create a sense of intrigue, of more surprises
yet to come. The quaint use of hanging gardens with
trellises or wooden forms evolved through need of
growing space because of the lack of land available
for garden use. Larger strolling gardens, while less
common, used the architectural distinction of pavil鄄
ions with upturned flying eaves and promenades with
intricate wood carving to yield immediate clues about
the sense of place. The social needs and construc鄄
tion materials at hand resulted in the creation of a
Chinese garden vocabulary with extreme sophistica鄄
tion and diversity.
The kinds of plants used in older gardens yiel鄄
ded a strong sense of place that complemented the
infrastructure construction. Without climate con鄄
trolled glass houses and global transportation, the
plant palette was more restricted and often secondary
to the built environment. The traditional Chinese
planting list of bamboos, rhododendrons, camellias,
forsythia, and osmanthus reflected a limited palette
of plants and did not stress the kind of diversity we
associate with a modern botanical garden. These tra鄄
ditional plant groups, however, were developed over
the centuries into innumerable cultivars. In tree peo鄄
nies alone, there are hundreds of different cultivated
strains. The selection of unique growth patterns with
specialized pruning techniques resulted in the devel鄄
opment of elaborate stylized Pen Jing, such fascinat鄄
ing cultivars as Long Zhou Huai (dragon claw tree,
Sophora japonica cv. ‘Pendula爷).
Contemporary interpretation of the ancient Chi鄄
nese garden style is possible. By using a simplified
and yet sophisticated treatment of water and archi鄄
tecture, one can make a clear design statement a鄄
bout being in China without at the same time attemp鄄
ting to copy of historic Chinese practices literally.
The endless variation of bamboo edging detail is just
one example where creative expression is based only
in the commonality of the construction material, in
this case, bamboo.
Stone has been used most effectively to interpret
local distinction. Red granite, white marble, green
bamboo stones, and Tai Hu stones speak eloquently
to the sense of place. Compositions of natural forms
as sculptural elements or stone carvings into decora鄄
tive items such as bridge railings and lanterns reflect
well historical Chinese styles. Re鄄interpreting histor鄄
ic paving patterns into modern gardens provides a
striking reflection of the traditional Chinese vernacu鄄
lar. The diversity and evolution of paving styles over
time speak strongly of both the regional choice of
materials and individual craftsmanship. Perhaps my
most favorite signature of Chinese gardens, these
decorative mosaic paths made of pebbles, stone
chips, slices of ceramic roof tiles and fragments of
broken rice bowls are uniquely and beautifully East鄄
ern. One glimpse of this style of paving immediately
creates a special, wonderful Chinese sense of place.
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