Analysis Of Space In Western Villas And Their Gardens' Styles In Five Avenues

Five Avenues are located at the former British Concession in Tianjin. It attracted a lot of scholars and visitors because of the Western style buildings and pleasant avenues. After survey and measurement of it, we know landscape in Five Avenues are composed of four elements, which are the gate, walls, garden and Western style buildings. The style and appearance of the gate is a combination of the Chinese and Western elements, but the position of the gate still follows Chinese tradition which is located in the southeastern corner of the courtyard. However, there are some changes for the relative position between the gate and the courtyard. The style and material of the walls consist with the main buildings. As the function of building has changed, the walls have also changed from the former closed, high ones into the transparent, low ones. Based on the relative position of the buildings in the courtyard, the garden can be divided into front garden and back garden. The front garden can be used as the transition space between the building and the street to protect the privacy of the building. The buildings with the back garden are usually close to the street without the transition space. The density and height increase from villas to apartments. The angles of the view for the pedestrian are also different. Because of the interference of the walls, the best view is in the street instead of the courtyardThe private gardens are another emphasis in this paper. After the survey, there are 23 survived private gardens, most of which are along MuNan street. The gardens in Qing Wang Palace, Narson's residence and Sun Zhenfang's residence have preserved very well. Some gardens in Wang Zhanyuan's residence and Da Wenshi's residence are built in the mid-80th of last century which follows the simple style of that time. Most of gardens which belong to the commercial buildings like restaurants and clubs are built after 2000. Those gardens try to mimic the European classical gardens with fountain and sculptures. According to the space characteristics and landscape elements, those gardens are most built in Western style with Chinese elements as supplements. The characteristics of Western style buildings are green lands, central fountain and radial paths. Chinese elements are as important as Western elements in some gardens. In those gardens, there are a lot of artificial hills, lakes and Chinese pavilions. The Chinese elements and Western elements are combined perfectly in those gardens, which form another kind of special garden style.