With stones, water and plant landscapes nestled around teahouses, pavilions and bridges, Chinese gardens are, by design, elaborate showcases.

An ambitious cultural project is set to create such an elaborate showcase in San Marino, California.

Early this year, construction began on a 12-acre Chinese garden at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.

"At its completion, the Huntington Chinese Garden will be the largest classical Chinese garden outside China," June Li, curator of the garden, told China Daily during her visit to Beijing in late October.

The garden will offer a means of educating visitors about Chinese art, literature, architecture, botany and culture, Li said.

Located in a largely undeveloped section of the Huntington's 207-acre grounds and framed by existing woodland, the 12-acre Chinese Garden will include a lake, a tea house, pavilions, bridges and numerous "poetic views," plus other natural and architectural features set amid a landscape of plants mostly native to China.

"In addition to its large size, what makes the Huntington Chinese Garden distinctive among those in North America is its location," Li said.

Opened to the public in 1928, the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens is one of the most renowned botanical collections and cultural centers in the United States.

The existing gardens, with their collections of art, literature, history and horticulture, provide an idyllic backdrop for the new garden, Li explained.

"The Chinese garden can really 'borrow the views' from either the adjacent gardens or mountains from afar," Li said.

Creative force

In fact, the Chinese garden in California will have its own creative style.

"We don't want to duplicate a Chinese garden like those in Suzhou or some other places in China," Li stressed. "What we're trying to do is to create a garden with a Chinese style and in a Chinese approach."

Li said the Huntington Chinese Garden will not only showcase the essence of Chinese ancient landscape art and architecture, but also harmoniously blend with the environment in San Marino.

In addition to plants native in China, visitors will also see palm trees or California oak trees in the Chinese garden, which in Li's words, will be an exceptional experience for most visitors.

The design for the new addition captures the spirit of classical Chinese gardens by incorporating traditional elements and materials.

A Chinese garden is naturalistic in style and poetic in meaning a tradition which has not changed for over 3,000 years. "And we will follow that tradition here at the Huntington," said Chen Jin, an architect currently working for EDAW, an international landscape design firm in Suzhou of East China's Jiangsu Province.

Each feature of the garden is chosen for both artistic effect and symbolic importance in the Chinese culture. A pavilion, for example, provides both a place to view the garden and a feature to be viewed. A lotus serves as both a beautiful water plant and a symbol of purity.

Gracefully winding pathways will lead visitors in and around the garden, inviting them to discover changing vistas and natural vignettes as they explore the garden from different vantage points.

The garden's master plan encompasses four gardens named after the four seasons and five special collection gardens linked by 18 "poetic views."

Each of the four seasonal gardens will include plants traditionally and symbolically associated with the seasons: peach trees for spring, lotus for summer, osmanthus trees for autumn and flowering plums for winter.

The Summer Garden, the first phase of the project which is now under construction, is some three acres of built landscape surrounding a one-acre lake.

The structures are designed principally in a style reflecting the classical scholar gardens of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911) in Jiangsu, according to Chen.

A native of Hong Kong, Li holds a master's degree in Oriental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in Chinese art history. After working in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for 14 years, she came to the Huntington in 2004.

Her new role as curator of the Chinese garden encompasses participation in the design and construction process to ensure that all elements of the garden keep with classical tradition.

Chen is another key member of the creative force behind the new garden at the Huntington.

Chen earned his bachelor's degree in architecture from Tongji University in Shanghai in 1983, and six years later went to the United States to further his studies in landscape architecture.

His work experience as a project coordinator for the Portland Chinese Garden in Oregon, which was completed in 2000, made him a good candidate for the project in the Huntington.

Difficulty in construction

To take this project from drawings on paper to reality was more challenging than Li and her colleagues expected.

Plans for the Chinese garden were unveiled in October 2001. Two years later, the Huntington partnered with the Suzhou Landscape Architecture and Design Institute in the project.

One of the major responsibilities of the Suzhou institute is to develop Chen's conceptual design into construction drawings.

Complex dialogues between the Suzhou architects and contractors in the United States helped implement the design and iron out many of the developmental issues, Li said.

In addition to preserving the traditional elements of the Chinese garden, the design should also comply with local codes, such as regulations for earthquake prevention.
 
Instead of solid wood posts for garden pavilions, US contractors suggested using steel beams with wood cladding.

Also the designers have to take the climate into consideration. "It's hot and dry in California, fairly different from the humid and mild weather in Jiangsu," Li explained.

To avoid the problem of wood cracking, constructors have all the timbers coming from China acclimatize to the conditions in California, which is a time-consuming process.

Besides the timbers, other key materials including scholar rocks, handcrafted lattice windows and roof tiles, will all come from China.

Skilled artisans from the Suzhou Construction Company are hired to ensure the authenticity of construction in every detail.

They are fabricating the five stone bridges in China, which form the architectural component of the first phase, and will travel to the Huntington to put them in place.

Unlike many other Chinese gardens in North America mostly supported by the government, the Huntington Chinese Garden has to rely on itself for fund-raising.

A US$10 million bequest from Peter Paanakker, the late Los Angeles businessman and philanthropist, and a US$500,000 grant from the Starr Foundation of New York, have enabled the Huntington to take the first steps for the project.

In recent months, some US$100,000 has been received in gifts and pledges from various members of the Chinese community in both Southern and Northern California as well as from interested parties abroad.

Development of future phases of the garden will continue over a period of years, depending on fund-raising, according to Li.

The estimated cost for completion of all 12 acres has not been determined, but will probably exceed US$100 million.

"It is an exciting project of great cultural significance and international scope," said Huntington President Steven S Koblik. "A world-class Chinese garden will not only enhance the already diverse cultural offerings of Southern California, but it will be a prime destination for international visitors and a source of enrichment for the local community for generations to come."

(China Daily December 17, 2005)