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.