A Study On Theories And Methods Of Placing Stones And Piling Hills In Chinese Landscape

The Chinese Traditional Garden has developed along the way of the literator's natural landscape garden,and formed a unique and splendid gardening system.The specific background of history,culture and natural environment led to the formation of the Chinese Natural Landscape Garden,and defined the key role of placed stones and piled hills in the Chinese Garden.Liu Dunzhen said,"artificial hill is the most 'versatile' and 'tangible' gardening skill of the Chinese Garden." The former implies the diverse functions and usages of artificial hill in garden,which could be a construction material,and a gardening skill,even the most efficient approach to solve complicated situations during garden building.The latter refers to the diversity of gardening approaches by artificial hills. Though "there is no garden without stones",artificial hills in different garden were built according to different site conditions,so that each has its own particular character,and distinguished from each other.Therefore,artificial hill is the key symbol of the Chinese Traditional Garden.In some point,it could even be declared that,a garden without placed stones and piled hills is not a typical Chinese traditional garden.The Chinese traditional garden is famous for its remarkable feature "derived from nature,but beyond nature",and this feature is partially a result of artistic creation in placed stones and piled hills.Gardening is not to simply imitate or copy the initial states of nature, but to "humanize nature" in a limited space by summarizing and refining nature.Placing stone and piling hill is a skill to consult natural landscape,"create the artificial according to the real",and finally reach the effect which "makes the artificial look real".In the Chinese Garden,placed stones and piled hills doesn't only form the main scenery and the topographic backbone,but also applies an approach to limit and organize spaces.Moreover, placed stones and piled hills function to integrate various gardening elements.A garden can reach the artistic state of "looks nature though manmade",using placed stones and piled hills to contrast buildings or decorate spaces.In addition,placed stones and piled hills can be applied as bank,revetment,retaining wall,flower bed,and even outdoor fumiture.Placing stone and piling hill skill continuously developed and improved in long history,and formed an extensive and profound art system.Today,however,the Modern garden,as an internationally dominant tendency,impinges this traditional art.Placing stone and piling hill works in modern garden changes in both context and form.There are plenty of researches on placing stone and piling hill,but few of them focus on the gardening skill. This paper generalizes the developing process and philosophy background of placing stone and piling hill,analyzes documents,and investigates existing cases with theoretic principles.It concentrates on "handiness in following and depending site conditions, refinement in appropriate dimension",and discusses the design procedure in 5 areas,that is, "investigating suitable site,planning decent garden","apperceiving theme by its title, substantiated with name","precise composition with flexible layout","overlooking tendency,appreciating texture","aftertaste lasting long".The purpose of this paper is to discuss how to implement placed stones and piled hills in modern landscape design practice,and to "make the ancient art form serve at present".