The Research On Peter Walker’s Memorial Gardens

Now all memorial gardens have social functions of civilizing the world, bearing civilization and guiding social thoughts. Thus they are a specific symbol of social cultures and a combination of spirit and history. Commemoration is a kind of emotion and a human instinct. Memorial gardens are unusual for their special functions and artistic connotation. They are valuable heritages.Peter Walker is one of the most important landscape architects in 20th century. His designs can be found at every corner of the world and he has contributed a lot to the development of landscape. Peter Walker has created meaningful and memorable outdoor spaces through many kinds of works. This paper is titled as the research on Peter Walker’s memorial gardens because the author is to conduct a research and discussion on the themes, stories, space shapes and designs of Peter Walker’s memorial gardens from the perspective of commemoration. Then this paper will give literature review and analyze related examples. Finally this paper will summarize these themes’ types, expression and narrative methods, space shapes, and design methods in order to provide some experience for future China’s memorial gardens.In this paper a research and a analysis were conducted for Peter Walker’s memorial gardens. The conclusions are as followings:(1) Peter Walker’s memorial gardens have three types of themes—characters, events and tombs. These themes have two expression methods—symbol and metaphor and are expressed by numbers and directions.(2) Peter Walker has his own narrative methods about memorial gardens. The author has analyzed National September 11 Memorial, one of Peter Walker’s memorial gardens. The result showed that National September 11 Memorial is designed by recording historic facts and expressing the pursuit of eternal. The author also concluded that there are static and dynamic narration methods in Peter Walker’s memorial gardens.(3) In Peter Walker’s memorial gardens, space combination forms have three space sequences:axis, distribution and multi-steps. Hard and soft elements exist in Peter Walker’s memorial gardens. Space combination methods are direct and indirect connection, multi-levels and penetration, guidance and hints, and transition and convergence.(4) Peter Walker has created memorial gardens through imagination of space, comparison of flat, and less is more.The author hopes that above analysis can provide some experience for future China’s memorial gardens designs.