VIEW BORROWING IN GARDEN ARCHITECTURE
Tongji University Journal, Architecture Edition, Issue No. 1, 1958
View borrowing figures large in a garden's plan. It merits attention in garden designing, and cannot be dispensed with in urban planning or the designing of dwellings and public buildings. Upon arriving at a well-designed garden, the visitor would feel indescribably relaxed and amused the moment he starts looking around. At a close look, he finds that the secret lies in the clever borrowing of views, a technique already in spontaneous use among garden crafters in antiquity, but it was not summarized until the Chongzhen reign (1628-1644) of the late Ming. In The Craft of Gardens, Ji Cheng (1582-c. 1642) writes,
Skill in landscape design is shown in the ability to "follow" and "borrow from" the existing scenery and terrain…. Following the existing lie of the land may require any of these skills: designing in accordance with the rise and fall of the natural contours, to accentuate their intrinsic form; or lopping tree branches that block the view and using rocks to direct the flow of a stream, so that each borrows value from the other. Where a pavilion is appropriate, build a pavilion, and where a gazebo is needed, build a gazebo. It does not matter if the paths are hidden away; in fact they should be laid out to twist and turn with the land; this is what is meant by artistry through suitability. To borrow from the scenery means that although the interior of a garden is distinct from what lies outside it, as long as there is a good view you need not be concerned whether this is close by or far away, whether clear mountains enhance their beauty in the distance or a dark purple-walled temple rises into the sky nearby. Wherever the view within your sight is vulgar, block it off, but where it is beautiful, take advantage of it; never mind if it is just empty fields around farm houses, make use of it all as a misty background. This is what is known as skill in fitting in with the form of the land…. If you can have a Buddhist monastery as your neighbor, the chanting of Sanskrit will come to your ears. The remote mountain peaks, gleaming with wondrous hues, form a bewitching background…. There are no fixed rules for designing gardens but there are certain principles for using natural scenery…. Making use of the natural scenery is the most vital part of garden design. There are various aspects such as using scenery in the distance, near at hand, above you, below you, and at certain times of the year.
Li Yu (1611-1680) also says in The One Man's Account,
Only through borrowing can a view be accommodated.
These words of Ji and Li have laid down the cardinal rules for garden-makers of later generations. Today, I would like to present my humble opinions on this issue, and beg for corrections if I have said anything wrong.
The view to be borrowed within comes apparently from without. In the same manner of converting something in someone else's
possession into one's own, an outside view can be incorporated into a garden to enrich or augment its attractions. The views borrowed in early years mostly came from natural landscape, which is best described by Tao Yuanming (c. 365-427):
Picking aster 'neath the eastern fence,
Upon southern mountains my gaze lies.
The gist of this line boils down to the word "gaze," a natural and unaffected means for intentional or unintentional "view borrowing." Wang Wei (701-761) announced the villa he had built in Wangchuan in what is present-day Lantian, Shaanxi province, by saying, "I have an estate at Wangchuan." Bai Juyi (772-846), who lived in roughly the same age as Wang Wei, had his famous Thatched Hut built on Mount Lushan, Jiangxi province.
In A Collection of Anecdotes in the Lü Garden, Qian Yong (1759-1844) says of the Garden of Perennial Spring in Wuhu, Anhui province:
The Reddish Brown Mountain presents itself before the window, with everything else—water swirling and rippling, a pagoda silhouetted in the pool, and bells tolling—coming into sight or within earshot all at once.
What views are borrowed is apparent in these lines. Just as Li Gefei (c. 1045-c. 1105) said of the Loop Stream Gully in A Record of the Celebrated Gardens of Luoyang:
From there, if one gazes out to the south, the layered peaks and green crests of Mount Songgao, Mount Shaoshi, Mount Longmen, and Mount Dagu present their wonder to the eye…. From there, if one gazes out to the north, he will see the halls and towers in the palace compounds of Sui-Tang times, with thousands of doors and ten times as many windows, lofty and elevated, splendid and gorgeous, stretching for a dozen miles on end. What took Zuo Si (250-305) over ten years of utmost efforts to describe in his rhapsodies can be exhausted here at one single glance.
About the Hu's Two Gardens North of the River, he says,
Its terrace offers a view that extends for over one hundred square miles in all directions: the Yi and the Luo Rivers zigzag through it; the trees and plants enveloped in mist and set off by clouds appear to be luxuriant; tall lofts and circuitous gazebos emerge at one moment and vanish at another. A painter, even after painstaking deliberations, would find it hard to paint all these out. Yet it is named "Terrace for Frolicking with the Moon."
Xu Hongzu (1586-1641)1 says in Diaries on Travels in Yunnan,
In the Ma's Garden a pavilion was built on another pond's southern bank, so that it faces the brooklet northward. Across the pond, the halls and pavilions of the Dragon Spring Temple are strewn here and there. A stupa up a ridge tosses its silhouette into the center of rippling water from the top of a plateau overlooking the Nine-Dragon Pond. But even more exotic is the view, with the slope and the pond contrasting each other whilst water bubbles and ripples endlessly at the fountainhead.
These gardens were all sited by "keeping the whole picture in mind," but no garden or estate does better than Buddhist temples in this regard. At least eighty per cent of these temples are nestled at the foot of a mountain, with a tranquil stream winding in the front and mountains rising in every direction. Such a site not only offers sequestered peace and quiet, but the wind there is the mildest as well. With mountains clad in cloud, and mist and verdure "shifted" before the windows without much ado, no place is better than such a wellconcealed temple for those who come to study Buddhism. Indeed,
Green mountains are alluring in my senses,
As I expect myself into these mountains' eyes.
Take, for example, the Thriving Bliss Temple at the Yushan Mountain of Changshu, Jiangsu province. Low and small as this mountain is, the temple seems to be rimmed in by lofty mountains and precipitous peaks. Most enviable, however, is the scenery in the temple's precinct,
Into the remotest recess a winding path stretches;
A meditation room sits deep amid flowers and trees.
This description pertains to the National Purification Temple of the Tiantai Mountain, the Soul's Retreat Temple of Hangzhou, and the Heavenly Boy Temple of Ningbo. Similar examples and records are legion. The pity is that among the best scenic resorts I seldom see evidence of conscientious efforts made in view borrowing—the siting is seldom decided on account of local topography, with buildings often perched on mountains or clustered all over a slope. Now that landscape is rendered in such disarray, there is no view borrowing to speak of. Examples of haphazard siting are so prevalent that they merit serious attention.
In garden-making architecture, the first thing to consider is to mesh buildings with surroundings, or, as Ji Cheng admonishes, "The trick lies in accommodating and borrowing [views]." The scenery for view borrowing in this regard should be arranged with a high degree of flexibility and adaptability. A masterstroke can work wonders on things that are otherwise insipid; but in eyes that stare but do not see, a perfect view can be neglected even if it beckons frantically. Take, for example, the gardens in the Jiangnan area. Most gardens in Changshu are built upon level ridges and tiny knolls, with views borrowed from the Yushan Mountain in the background. This method is assimilated in the Solace-Imbued Garden at the foot of the Huishan Mountain in Wuxi, and patterned after in the Garden of Harmonious Charms in Beijing's Summer Palace by focusing its views on water, level ridges and winding shores, but, more importantly, by borrowing the views of the Longevity Hill. Indeed, even when our forebears were imitating something, they still kept their eyes on the general picture, and never took action before they had mastered the overall spirit of the project at hand. As to the gardens in Hangzhou, Yangzhou and Nanjing, their layouts and "view borrowing" are strictly handled in accord with what the local mountains and waters can offer. Quite a few gardens in Songjiang, Suzhou, Changshu and Jiaxing in the Jiangnan area borrow views from the Buddhist pagodas beyond their walls. Just as Qian Yong puts it,
Making a garden is like composing verse or prose;
Every twist or turn must be done with prudence.
Only in this way can a garden stand out in distinction.
In his Diaries on Travels in Yunnan, Xu Hongzu writes,
The Chinese pear-leaved crabapples are ripening in a northern neighbor's garden; draping their boughs over the southern wall, they appear bright red in a lovable way.
A famous Song-dynasty poem has it,
Not to be shut up by a garden full of glory vernal,
A twig of red apricot flowers ventures out of wall.
How beautiful the vistas are, offered by the red fruits in a northern neighbor's garden and the single twig of red apricot flowers protruding over a wall! The Craft of Gardens says again,
However sparse a glimpse at a neighbor's flowers there is to be given, their vernal charms may well be gleaned for inexhaustible enjoyment if only they can be beckoned upon.
Thus we know the views to be borrowed can be large or small. Doesn't Ji Cheng talk about "using scenery in the distance" or "near at hand"? Shen Fu (1763-1825)2 says in his Six Records of a Floating Life,
From here we can look up to see mountain peaks, and look down to take in gardens and pavilions. Vast and quiet is the vista….
Indeed, if borrowed cleverly, exquisite views are available everywhere whether you look up or look down at them. Poets and painters of bygone years were so hard up they could only afford to build rooms with three rafters, but one thing they would never give up was "view borrowing," so that they could "lean" upon a mountainside as if it were a wall, and "bring" along water as if it came from a ditch.
In my opinion, neighboring homes in today's residential quarters may as well erect low walls or hedges between them, open lattice windows into their walls and cover them with green rattans and vines, so that they can communicate over such walls or hedges and borrow each other's views. Good-neighborly delights of this sort are at least better than neighbors staring at each other straight through opposite doors. In his comment on the Garden Half Way up the Mountain in Miscellaneous Notes on the Eastern City, Li E (1692-1752)3 relates on a vista that belongs to a realm categorically different:
The Garden Half Way up the Mountain is only half the size of the Yu's Garden, and they are separated merely by an alleyway. Climb up the northern loft of the Yu's Garden for a lookout, and one sees sun-lit woods and moss-greened rocks that seem to be crowding into one's bosom along with singing birds and fragrant flowers, an engrossing vista indeed. What the Hwa Dzan (Amitabha Buddhist) Temple east of the garden offers is a totally different view. After dusk falls when everything quiets down, and before the rise of a rooster's crow breaks the silence at the fifth watch of the night, water gurgles and pines sough to echo the drum beats and bell tolls from time to time.
Most gardens in Suzhou are walled in, making it impossible to borrow views from the outside world. This is where 'mutual borrowing of opposite views" inside of a garden comes in handy. As a matter of fact, "opposite-view borrowing" and "view borrowing" are the same thing, for you may just take "view borrowing" as an alternative to "opposite-view borrowing" that takes place outside of a garden. A stellar example of "opposite views" is found in the Humble Administrator's Garden, where the moon gate of the Loquat Courtyard opens exactly onto the Fragrant Snow and Luxuriant Cloud Pavilion, with the latter offering the former wonderful scenery to be borrowed. Close by the Loquat Courtyard is the Embroidered Damask Pavilion perched atop a knoll, where one can look down at the entire walled-in small yard and gaze far into the distance to see the Mountain-in-View Loft. This scenery is brought about by the mutual borrowing of views high and low and from the four directions. The tiny yards in front of the Yulan Magnolia Hall and the Vernal Crabapple Yard borrow views from the large garden they find themselves in, so that visitors to these tiny yards can still marvel at the spatial and spiritual resonance of a vast vista. Another good example of view borrowing can be found in the Good for Both Families Pavilion4.
As a fine traditional landscape-making technique, view borrowing should certainly be inherited and put to wider use today. But some garden designers tend to thrash things out merely from a blueprint, without caring to make on-the-spot feasibility studies, and the requisite view borrowing method is likely to be brushed aside as a result. Take, for example, Shanghai with its jungle of tall buildings. If an artificial mountain is ill-located amidst jumbled high-rises, it will have little chance to evoke real mountains and woods, and people would find such a setting jarring. If a designer intends to borrow views from a tall building, he has got to think it over carefully. Because there are no views worth borrowing from its surroundings, the Multi-storied Building Garden perched upon an earthen hill at Doctor Ma's Lane, Suzhou, surrounds itself with houses with two methods offered in The Craft of Gardens,
Where the view in sight is vulgar, block it off,
But where it is beautiful, take advantage of it.
The Sun Yat-sen Park in west Shanghai seems to be a cut above its counterparts in that it detaches itself from the city's din and traffic in a variety of ways. When we climb up an earthen knoll in the southeast corner of that garden and look into the distance, we can see none of the outside buildings—the designer has taken pains to block the views that cannot be borrowed, and then he has ponds dug and rocks stacked up to make the visitor feel like roving a wooded mountain.
In my opinion, it is inappropriate to erect tall mountains on the immense track of land of the Western Suburb Park in Shanghai because there are so many tall buildings in close proximity and in the distance. If the ponds nearby can be incorporated and interspersed with reeds in future expansion plans, those who go boating in the park will feel like they were oaring on a misty expanse of water akin to the Western Brook Wetland of Hangzhou. Once the water surface of a park is expanded, it not only adds to the allure of the vistas on the premises but also help mitigate dust and environmental pollution. For the same reason, both the Garden of Perfect Splendor and the "Three Seas"5 of Beijing have kept broad water surfaces on their premises, so that incorporeal silhouettes in the water intermingle with corporeal trees and groves and buildings ashore to conjure up one fascinating scene after another through judicial mutual borrowing of a series of "opposite views." In Diaries of Yuan Zhongdao (1570-1626)6, the author writes,
I went to my friend Mi Wanzhong's garden in Haidian district together with Wu Shimei from Wanling7. A difficult part of garden-making in the capital city is the shortage of water. This garden, however, abounds in water, so much so that all its lofts and pavilions are water-bound and look like so many painted pleasure boats. As lotuses happened to be in the peak of their flowering season when we were there, their color and aroma were exceptionally infatuating. On the top floor of the garden's loft we also saw the scenic views of the Western Hills in the distance.
Mi Wanzhong writes of the Lush Foliage Loft in his own garden,
Nothing delights more than mounting a loft
To toast West Hills at ease at moonlit night.
Yuan Zhongdao's account illustrates the role of water in a garden while Mi's poem shows how his garden borrows views from the same hills as the Summer Palace does.
As every garden has its way with view borrowing to achieve individuality, it is unwise to impose uniformity at the expense of individuality. The Mountain Summer Resort of Chengde borrows views from the surrounding mountains and the structures of the Eight Major Temples. The Black Tortoise-Snake Lake8 of Nanjing bedecked itself by incorporating the skyline of Nanjing close by and the Bell Mountain far away, but neither the skyline nor the mountain could beat the beauty of the reflections of the city wall quivering in the lake, so much so that these reflections became the lake's undisputable "name card." However, these lovely reflections are gone forever after dykes were erected along the city wall and the parapet walls demolished. In Hangzhou there is one mountain peak in the south and another in the north across the West Lake, and the center of the lake itself is graced with the Memorial Causeways of Su Shi and Bai Juyi, but it is the Pagoda in Protection of Qian Chu9 and the Lei's Peak Pagoda mirrored in the lake that are more likely to make visitors reluctant to tear themselves away. In Beijing, the Jade Flowery Islet is to the Beihai Park what the Longevity Hill and the Western Hills are to the Summer Palace. Another outstanding example is the Slender West Lake of Yangzhou. If we sit on the Anglers' Platform to look at the Lotus Bridge (that is, the Five-Pavilion Bridge) through the archway, or at the White Pagoda through the square brick frame10, we find that both are state-of-the-art examples of "opposite view" borrowing, which combine to become the most striking hallmark of the Slender West Lake.
Nevertheless, ignoring the differences between gardens and bypassing the principle of adapting landscape gardening to the lie of the land, some wilful designers of large gardens today want to impose the plan of the West Lake of Hangzhou as the one and only prototype on all the large gardens to be created. Who knows what would become of our gardens if all of them were intractably patterned after the West Lake? The Summer Palace of Beijing is exactly a product of this waywardness. Even though some modifications have been made to break such imposed similarity, visitors who have been to the West Lake still come under the impression that some of the Summer Palace's sights are mechanically copied from its prototype.
Our forbears' use of the view-borrowing technique was not limited to the craft of gardens. In their choice of urban settlements and other sites, aside from political, economic and military factors, the landscape beyond a city wall to be depended upon and borrowed from was weighed with utmost discretion, because a friendly living environment is every prospective dweller's dream. Let me quote the Diaries of Yuan Zhongdao once more,
The scenery around the village is delicately charming, where dwellings cling to hills, lofts sit astride brooks, belvederes reach up to clouds, and footpaths are flanked by pines and bamboos.
How could one not be charmed by such an environment?
Yao Nai (1731-1815)11 says of the city of Tai'an in "Notes on Breasting Mount Tai,"
Observed from atop the city wall in sunset glow, the Wenshui River and Mount Culai are picture-perfect, whilst misty clouds float half way up the mountain like a silk ribbon.
Spectacular this mountainous city is indeed! Along with the city of Tai'an in Shandong province, there are Guilin in Guangxi province and Huayin in Shaanxi province… and the list of picturesque mountainous cities in this country is too long to be exhausted. As the old saying goes,
Take a peep at a single spot on its skin through a tube, and one can visualize the whole leopard."
The selection of tomb sites has a great deal to do with geomancy, but did our ancients not take pains on view borrowing by bringing all factors into account? A comparison between two tombs in Nanjing, the Filial Piety Tomb of the First Ming Emperor and His Empress12 and Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum, is rather revealing. The former features a stairway meandering its way along the natural terrain of the Bell Mountain to the tomb, the Square City. Standing on the Square City, we find ourselves embraced by the surrounding mountains, with a range of cliffs forming a mammoth screen across the Yangtze; as we look down, the ancient imperial city presents itself before our eyes, all the while the wintry wind keeps howling but standing here, we cannot feel it at all. Indeed, there was good reason why Zhu Yuanzhang (1328-1398) moved his tomb from the Magic Valley Temple on the southeast slope of the Bell Mountain to its present site. By comparison, Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum, when observed in the distance, is exposed starkly and shows no intention to hide itself, and its memorial hall thrusts up beyond the clouds like an imposing tower; when looked around on the spot, the surroundings are utterly bald and empty, and, with no view to be borrowed in the distance, there are no deep and serene sights to be savoured—all that is left with the complex is its lofty and solemn momentum. In the heat waves of midsummer or the bitter cold of high winter, it is laborious for those climbing up to the great man's grave. Striking, therefore, are the differences between these two tombs to everyone who has visited them.
Now, a look at the Thirteen Ming Tombs in Changping, Beijing. Mountain-rimmed, with the Heavenly Longevity Mountain in the backdrop, the topography of this resting place for Ming-dynasty monarchs in their afterlife was chosen with unique wisdom. Talk of imperial palaces, and three complexes come to mind right away: the Epang Palace of the Qin (221-206 BC), stretching for three hundred li on end; the Great Light Palace of the Tang (618-907) in present-day Xi'an, facing the Zhongnan Mountain; and the Imperial Palaces of the Southern Song (1127-1279), spanning the Qiantang River and the West Lake in Hangzhou. The well-conceived view borrowing schemes of this trio are of textbook values for garden-makers today.
In a nutshell, view borrowing is a garden-making design principle that ought to be applied in light of location, seasonal change and other factors. From an aesthetical point of view, it should be flexibly used and carefully deliberated when it comes to independent buildings and the relationship between buildings and between buildings and the environment. Only thus can the overall conception of a garden design make sense and the dwellers' aesthetic demands be better satisfied.