Post on 23-Sep-2020
Chinese Garden and Phenomenology
ARCH 3120: 20th Century of Ideas
Chenan Shen
Abstract
Since 1950s, a new branch of architectural theories known as architectural
phenomenology that emphasizes on human experience, historical interpretation, and
poetic considerations began to develop in United States and Europe. The theories and
relating practices reached a wide audience in 1960s and 1970s with a continuous
influence until today. On the other side of the Earth, a long-lasting architectural
practice in China of designing Gardens embodies a similar idea on human experience
and poetic considerations. This paper will compare and contrast the underlying ideas
of Chinese garden design and architectural phenomenology with specific text and case
studies. This study will focus on how spaces are created for sensational experience
and poetic expression in different ways and studies how such difference are generated
by the difference in culture and philosophy. On top of that, by analyzing
phenomenology along with garden design, this study will seek to deepening the
concept of Chinese garden as a typology and explore the possibilities of translating it
into the modern world.
Key Word: Chinese Garden; Architectural Phenomenology
I. Chinese Garden Design History and Theory
The practice of Chinese Garden dates back to 1152 BC as Classic of Poetry
recorded the process of building up the royal garden by the Emperor of Zhou Dynasty.
When it came to Han Dynasty, private gardens started to thrive as well. Gradually,
garden practices accumulated its discipline in terms of technology and aesthetic:
Chinese literacy, Taoism, Buddhism, and other cultural flux are incorporated into the
expression of gardens, and a set of technique in terms of curating spaces within the
garden are also developed and inherited. The development of Garden achieved its
peak at in Ming and Qing Dynasty, during which the canonical book on Chinese
Garden design called The Garden Treatise was produced.
As being almost entirely designed and constructed by the literati class, garden is
closely related to the philosophy of Confucianism and Taoism. As Wang Shu said in
his book House Making, “creating a Garden is like creating one’s own world” (Wang,
28), designing a garden in ancient China is materializing the philosophies of the
owner. As both Confucianism and Taoism advocate for a intimate and spiritual
relationship between human and nature in order to understand one’s true being,
Garden become a media to enhance and realize such spiritual relationship with nature
through experience. While garden design is strongly rooted in the philosophy of
Confucianism and Taoism, there lacks a direct reference in theory that brings
connection between the two philosophies and garden design. The very few texts
written within the discipline are more towards a record of experience than a
abstraction of theory. For example, the most canonical text, The Garden Treatise,
collects detailed summary of many valuable practices but lacks the level of
abstraction on analyzing how the placement of pavilion and vegetation relates to a
broader discourse of theory, that “it only reaches the fact but not the reason behind”
(Peng, 6). While lacking a conceptualized theory on creating “Garden Spaces”,
specific principles on how to create spatial experience in order to enhance the spiritual
relationship with nature is abundant and fully developed. These specific principles are
often narrated with the idea of manipulating views, such as “Borrowing Views”,
“Contrasting Views”, “Suppressing Views”, “Adding View”, “Framing Views”, etc.
With the practice of Garden has been carried on for thousands of years, a similar trunk
of ideas started to emerge in 1950s on the other side of the continent.
II. Architectural Phenomenology Theory
Beginning 1950s, a new wave of thinking in Architecture called architectural
phenomenology began to develop. Beginning in the 1950s, architectural
phenomenology quickly reached a wide audience in the late 1970s and 1980s, and
continuing until today. Architectural phenomenology, with its emphasis on human
experience and poetic considerations stood in sharp contrast to the anti-historicism of
postmodernism. It calls to reflect and investigate object at first place possible which
ties back the most fundamental senses of human being.
This new trunk of architecture theory is deeply rooted in the articulation of
phenomenology by Husserl and Heidegger. Husserl argues that phenomenology is
centrally concerned with ‘how perception, thought, emotion, and action are directed
toward things in the world and the meaning things have for us in different forms of
experience” (Smith, 193). The objective of Husserl is to “leave aside all metaphysical
and empirical presuppositions” in order to catch the most essential and concrete
beings of things as they appeared. While Husserl points out a way to understand the
real being of things through experience, Heidegger argues for a deeper understanding
of human being ourselves. He argues that “man is the only being who can ask from its
being”(17, Shirazi), through questioning and understanding the ontological essence of
other beings.
Translating into architecture, architects start to advocate for designs that focus on
human experience in order to promote understanding of the beings of things as they
appeared. In An Architecture of the Seven Senses, Juhani Pallasmaa criticizes the
architecture of his time as being “the retinal art of the eye”, that architecture has
turned from a three-dimensional object providing multidimensional sensuality to “an
art of the printed image fixed by the hurried eye of camera”. He argues that such
transformation disconnects human being from the experience of the world and makes
architecture became “isolated in the cool and distant realm of vision” (Nakamura, 28).
Instead of the conceptual architecture, Juhani advocates for a multi-sensory
architecture that retains the qualities of matter, space, and scale which are “measured
equally by the eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue, skeleton, and muscle” (Nakamura, 30).
Alberto in his essay in Questions of Perception points out that “solitude” is the key to
imagine and conceptualize phenomenology of architecture, that to open to perception
one must “transcend the mundane urgency of “things to do” and “access that inner life
which reveals the luminous intensity of the world”. Alberto conceptualizes the
phenomenology of architecture as power to invoke human knowledge of the world
and to unify both mental and physical understanding of the reality in order to question
and understand one’s own beings like Heidegger said.
III. Difference and Similarity Between Theories
Though developed under different time and different cultural context, both
Chinese Garden design and phenomenology of architecture focus on designing spaces
through human experience in order to deepening the understanding of the reality. In
fact, a lot of the practices in Chinese Garden design can be referred to what has been
argued and proposed within the framework of phenomenology theory. For example,
Juhani proposes the “architecture of the senses” whereas Chinese Garden is inherently
spaces design for human senses. Similarly, the principles in Chinese Garden design
also invoke the sense of sight, touch, hearing and smelling. On top of that, both
phenomenology and Garden Design introduce another dimension of experience: time.
The cu-ration of different senses and experiences is made possible and more powerful
only with processes. A dimension of time through the architecture invokes the sense
of tranquility and solitude by juxtaposition and connection to different senses which
affirm the very existence of being.
On the other hand, there are difference between two practices as a consequence of
their different underlying philosophies. The Chinese Garden rebuild the natural
landscape with one’s own understanding of world to express and enhance the spiritual
relationship between human and nature through experience. It is to recreate a larger
dialogue between human, poems, and nature for achieving a larger existence. On the
other hand, phenomenology tends to be more inward looking, advocating for a
consolidation of one’s own being by re-establishing the understanding and connection
to the things through sensational experience of the them.
IV. Case studies of Chinese Garden: Lingering Garden
In Chinese garden, the experience is enhanced through a permutation of different
spaces. By creating a sequence of multi-sensory spaces each with different spatial
quality, one will be able to understand fully the being of the landscape as a hybrid of
nature and philosophy. In this sense, circulation is the most important component of a
garden as it dictates how your sequence of experience and establishes the relationship
between the being of the landscape and the being of the self.
Plans of Lingering Garden
Jun, Tong. Jiang Nan Yuan Lin Zhi. Zhong Guo Jian Zhu Gong Ye Chu Ban She, 2014.
For example, in the Lingering Garden, the processes of experience are connected
through different “rooms” each with different threshold condition and different
porosity. Some are mostly enclosed from outside leaving only certain windows open
to provide expectations of the next scene, some are completely open providing an
understanding of the local condition, some are simply a larger platform, a pavilion or
a small bridge that introduces another level of spatial experience. The different
qualities of the room configuration provides a distinct difference in sensory
experience including the breeze of wind, the touch of humidity, the flavor of
vegetation, and the change in temperature. The seemingly uniform and orthogonal
plans are interrupted and penetrated by landscapes, creating a diversity of experience.
As shown in the plan, spaces within the garden are created with two distinct
logic: walls and landscapes. In this binary system, landscape is the source of
experience, the object to understand and relate while wall is the barrier, the limit that
stops one experience in order to enhance another. The landscapes are distributed
across the entire garden with different dimensions and scales. Walls are introduced
with different porosity to create different levels of connection to the landscape as a
source of multi-sensory experience. With different level of senses given by the
landscape, vision is no longer the driving forces of spatial experience, sometimes your
skin feels the humidity before you cross a threshold and understand there is a
vegetation, sometimes you hear the sound of a waterfall before you enter another
space and realize the existence of a larger landscape. Your muscle, ear, eye, skin, and
nose are all integrated to understand the variety of the spaces. The logic of the garden
is clear and simple while the form and experience created are complex. By repeating
the language of walls and landscapes, the Lingering Garden becomes a synthesis of
many gardens. With careful manipulation of the location and scale of walls and
landscapes, every section of the garden retains an entirety as an autonomous entity,
providing the same logic and experience as the whole. By becoming a self-dividing
and repeating entity, the Lingering Garden interweaves different experiences within
the processes of space and provides a understanding of the entirety. Walking in the
garden allows you to understand the being of the landscape through an enhanced
experience of humidity of the stream, the flavor of the leaves, the sound of the
waterfall, and the temperature resulted from the orientation . On top of that, the
understanding of one same landscape through different angle, perspective, and
position allows one to establish an understanding of a broader picture and realize the
spiritual relationship between inner world and broader nature.
V. Case studies of Architectural Phenomenology Theory: Therme Vals
In practices of architectural phenomenology, the diversity of spatial experience is
also the most important media to enhance understanding of the being. For example,
Therme Vals, as one of the most canonical building in this field, deepens people’s
understanding of water, stone, and air and transform them beyond the mundane
experience of everyday life in order to evoke people to reflect on one’s own being.
Plans of Therme Vals
https://www.archdaily.com/85656/multiplicity
Similar to Lingering Garden, Therme Vals also creates a variety of different
spatial experience. Sequence of spaces are created with an integration of multiple
senses. Different pools and different rooms are designed with different humidity,
temperature, light, sound, and height to provide a wide range of perspectives in order
to fully understand an object. The pools becomes not only a facility but also a
enhancement of the senses within the spaces, through which mundane experiences are
transformed. The essence of objects are signified and accentuated with all the senses,
deepening the understanding of the reality and creating a sense of solitude. Light casts
down along the edge of the stone, reflecting on the polished stone panels which are
made smooth enough for human to touch. Different colors of sky well creates another
level of visual information differentiating the hot spring and the cold pool, again
integrating the sense of the skin and the sense of eye. Sounds are reflected on the
smooth surface of the water and the stone, emphasizing the materiality of both. As
you move across the space, the senses of your skin and your ears are enhanced to be
able to receive signals behind the wall and to understand far beyond your eyes. The
wave created by your movement and reflected by the wall, the sound of splash from
your hand touching the water and the subtle gradation of temperature along the way
invoke a deeper understanding of the space as an object.
VI. Difference and Similarity Between Practices
Both Lingering Garden and Therme Vals create a diverse sets of experience along
the circulation, and both focus deeply on calling different senses to transform the
mundane understanding of an object. However, while the Lingering Garden
concentrated on bring a connection between the spiritual world and the natarual
landscape, Therme Vals focus more on how to invoke an introspective understanding
of the self. Spatially, Lingering Garden is about the connection between interior and
exterior and move between the two, while Therme Vals is primarily about moving in
an object to understand the different aspect of it. On top of that, the circulation of
Therme Vals presents itself with much more simplicity than the Lingering Garden as
Lingering Garden strives to create a sense of entirety through complexity.
Both Lingering Garden and Therme Vals deepening one’s understanding of the
reality, but Lingering Garden does it in order to emerge human existence into the field
of multiple senses. It is outward in terms of its purpose, aiming to connect individual
with a larger dialogue between self and nature. On the other hand, Therme Vals is
more inward oriented, where the senses are invoked to sharpen one’s understanding of
an object surrounding him in order to achieve the moment of solitude and realize
one’s own existence in the world.
Hand-drawn Diagrams
VII. Prospect on Translating Chinese Garden to the Modern Time
The analysis and comparison between the traditional garden design theory with a
modern architectural theory opens up the horizon of translating Chinese garden as a
typology into modern world as a remedy to the fracture in Chinese Architecture
history. The most challenging topic in creating a “modern” garden is the friction
between program and circulation. Traditional garden often has a minimum amount of
programs, which allows it to utilize a large amount of space to design landscapes and
establish different experience and relationships. In fact, the most important space in a
garden is the promenade. As a result, how to resolve the density of activities under the
urban context and the sensational experience of the traditional garden is the utmost
challenge. On top of that, we must re-think the meaning of a “garden”: does it have to
have outdoor space? Does it have to have vegetation? Does it have to have pavilions,
bridges, boats as component?
The study of architectural phenomenology could be an inspiration for those
problems. Phenomenology theory, as a response to postmodernism with the cultural
context of urbanization, develops towards creating sensational experience within the
urban form. Steven Holl proposes that “Intensity of experience in the city is
equivalent to serenity and silence in a forest”. He points out that “ Urban space
approached from the simultaneous interaction of program, section, and material
interrelates to form a psychological field”, and introduces spatial experience of the
urban form into the study of phenomenology (Nakamura, 38). Building up on that, the
natural landscape in the traditional garden might be re-interpreted as an urban
landscape of the density of programs. The relationship between self and the larger
entirety could be re-appropriated to establish a collective identity of the city, different
programs penetrate one essential promenade, creating different sensational experience
for people to understand the relationship between individual and city. Indeed, this
approach of radically transform a traditional garden into a modern and urban form
will lose the poetic beauty of a garden and disconnect it with the inner world and the
broader dialogue between history and literature, but it might creates a different poetic
experience that is unique in our urbanized world.
Plans and Diagrams of Educational campus Sonnwendviertel
Popelka, Anna, et al. Speaking Architecture: PPAG Phenomenology. Ambra/V, 2014.
The project above is the Educational campus Sonnwendviertel in Austria, it
shows a way of how program could be a form of urban landscape and how
promenades and views could be framed to have multiple experience of the same
program. It could be interpreted as an urban garden.
VIII. Conclusion
Phenomenology theory and Chinese Garden theory, while distant considering the
dimension of time and space, share a lot of common characteristics in terms of their
attitude towards experience and the spirit of being. They both inspire practices that
embrace and create multi-sensory spaces, evoking another dimension of reality that
goes beyond the mundane experience. On the other hand, the different cultural
backgrounds of both theory results in different intentions and objectives.
Phenomenology tends to be more introspective, digging into the being of the object in
order to start questioning the being of self. The Garden design theory relates more to a
broader dialogue between the self, the history, and the landscape. Analyzing both
theories opens up the horizon of translation garden design theory into the modern,
urbanized world by embracing the concept of density and program.
IX. Bibliography
Jun, Tong. Jiang Nan Yuan Lin Zhi. Zhong Guo Jian Zhu Gong Ye Chu Ban She,
2014.
Nakamura, Toshio. Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture ; Steven
Holl, Juhani Pallasmaa, Alberto Perez-Gomez. A u Publ., 1994.
Peng, Yigang. Zhong Guo Gu Dian Yuan Lin Fen Xi. Zhong Guo Jian Zhu Gong Ye
Chu Ban She, 1986.
Popelka, Anna, et al. Speaking Architecture: PPAG Phenomenology. Ambra/V, 2014.
Shirazi, Mu?ammad Riz?a. Towards an Articulated Phenomenological Interpretation
of Architecture: Phenomenal Phenomenology. 2013.
Saieh, Nico. “Multiplicity and Memory: Talking About Architecture with Peter
Zumthor.” ArchDaily, ArchDaily, 2 Nov. 2010,
https://www.archdaily.com/85656/multiplicity-and-memory-talking-about-
architecture-with-peter-zumthor.
Smith, David Woodruff. Husserl. Taylor and Francis, 2014.
Wang, Shu. Zao Fang Zi. Shi Bao Wen Hua, 2017.
Zumthor, Peter. Thinking Architecture. Birkhäuser, 2017.