Contemporary Eclecticism Landscape Character Study

“It’s an inevitable course for the contemporary construction of China’s landscape to take in the quintessence of modern landscape architecture, the process of which I believe is set in the period of eclecticism. This kind of transitional period will end in producing new mainstream of landscapes. The contemporary Chinese society is inundated with all kinds of principles(including the Big-Foot aesthetic by Yu Kongjian), but there are always oppositions,which means that such principle doesn’t form a mainstream but it is pregnant with the will-be mainstream principle.”----Zhou WeiquanThe emergence of the new mainstream of landscape design in China actually leads to exploration of traditional Chinese gardens and fusion of developments of world landscape.Before this new mainstream appeared, a lot of people engaged in this profession might feel confused from time to time. But now a kind of selective philosophical ideas----eclectic designing style begins to emerge and develop. It’s an inevitable transition from the trend of modernism design and post-modernism to a new designing trend and an alternative application of various designing style of the past days; it summarizes and returns back to the diversified designing styles through the course of history and exerts profound influence on the development and extension of contemporary landscape design in China.This paper is mainly divided into seven parts: the first part, as the introduction part, is concerned about the research background, purpose, significance and research method of this paper. The second part focuses on the research dynamics at home and abroad, in the form of literature review. The third part mainly tells about the manifestation, characteristics and important function of philosophy of eclecticism, period of eclecticism in architecture and in other related industries. The fourth part mainly tells that the development process of landscape design assuming a curved waving line. Set in several specific historical periods, this part will analyze the existence, characteristics and values of the phenomenon of eclecticism in landscape designing. The fifth part mainly tells that in the present historical period, there exist designing works which share common characteristics with those of the period of eclecticism which may serve as the most persuasive demonstration for the phenomenon of eclecticism in the contemporary landscape designs. The sixth part introduces ideology of contemporary landscape designers who display eclecticism in their works and the specific cases. The seventh part is mainly about conclusion, reflections and expectations.