Time And Space Analysis Of The Urban Gardens Exhibited At Wuhan Garden Expo

For landscape architecture,garden expo is an assembly of new technologies and new trends,while for cities,it is a platform to present itself.A good urban expo park could exhibit typical local culture of a city,and play an important "medium" role to improve the city's image.Through time-space analysis of the geographical culture of urban expo park,we could understand the impact that various urban geographical,economic,historical,cultural and political elements exerts to the general public in terms of urban cognition.In virtue of relevant theories of media geography,the author has carried out time-space analysis of 82 exhibited urban gardens located in the Wuhan garden expo:park(1).In regard to geographical distribution,there are more cities in the eastern and southern part of China join the expo than those in the north and west,to be more specific,64%of the exhibiting cities are located in south China,east China and central China,while 28%are from north,northwest and northeast China.The host city has an even higher participation rate of 20%.Such kind of geographical feature embodies that the host city as well as cities of higher administrative level and of better economic strength have more regional advantages;(2).The main cultural themes of exhibited gardens in regard to dynasties:modern culture takes up a big proportion of 35%;culture related to Tang,Song,Ming and Qing dynasties takes up 37%;culture related to Xia,Shang,Zhou,Three Kingdoms,and Wei Jin Northern and Southern Dynasties accounts for 28%;while there is no culture of Qin and Yuan dynasty being regarded as the theme during the expo.Through analysis,the author has summarized the time and space preference features of Wuhan garden expo park:1.Space preference of exhibition cities:(1).Cities with convenient traffic,sound economy and favorable natural conditions are more involved and are valued,while less developed areas including areas of ethnic minorities are less valued.Elements such as industrial structure,history,culture,and natural geographical conditions are all influencing cities' enthusiasm in participation;(2).Municipalities directly under the central government and capital cities are more valued;(3)the host city wins more advantageous resources.2.Time preference in regard to cultural themes:(1).Exhibiting gardens are more inclined to highlight the Han culture in history,which was prospered in Han,Tang,Song,and Ming and Qing dynasties.In history,these dynasties had longer time span,stable political conditions,prosperous culture,and strong economy,these unique historical and cultural resources are the symbols of various exhibiting gardens,and the display of urban geographical identity.(2).Cultures related to the Three Kingdoms period and Wei Jin Northern and Southern Dynasties are less expressed,as in those dynasties,frequent wars took place which lead to the increase of number of homeless people,regimes changed frequently,and culture did not make any great progress.Qin and Yuan dynasties were neglected in the exhibition.As in Qin Dynasty,the culture was destroyed by the tyranny,which lead to the lack of own characteristics of the dynasty.The other dynasty which is neglected is Yuan,though Yuan had a large territory at that time,its spiritual core is deviated from the typical Han culture and central plain culture,thus the exhibition of this dynasty is decreased.(3).Some newly developed cities,or cities with less typical cultural features but with beautiful urban environment and rich natural resources,have applied more modern expression techniques to weaken the expression of time and local history and culture.These cities paid more attention to the expression of natural landscape features,for example,some cities have kept oceans and volcanoes as their themes.