The Illustration of the Pride of Life
In Chinese traditional architecture, we can see the architectural images often change the places of fantastic space. It seems that the visual part is false while the main part is the blank space, which is for people to cross rest and detour. The spatial patterns lived by Chinese literators are often entrusted with owners’ characters. In this project, the Pride of Life of Hunming, we try to divide the poems into characters, disassemble the paintings into shapes and colours and restore the sculptures into texture and volume, changing the architecture into the original need for space. We use the landscape to allocate the space. It expresses the spirit of purity and simplicity of eastern aesthetics. The highest state of eastern aesthetics is the blank. Not only in poem but also in paintings, appropriate blank or white can make the whole work more harmonious and exquisite. The application of this technique reaches the top in Song dynasty. The picture, “The picture of village and snow in twilight”, of Xia Gui in the Southern Song dynasty draws the twilight and the snow scene of late autumn or early winter. Though the picture is small, yet it reflects something great. It is so exquisite and it shows the feeling of coldness and silence by the river, by using a lot of blanks. Poeticizing the life and making the space flow is not only the aesthetic appeal of those old paintings but also the rethink and resistance to the vulgar appreciation at the moment of our designers. In the current situation of the project, there are only pre-existing buildings. There is no feeling of deep courtyards with a long but narrow blank area. One of our big challenges is how to use landscape to allocate the space and set aside the blank of freedom at the same time. Our target is to enclose the walls, draw the stones, and avoid splendid decorations and skintles, aiming on the scale of space and the creation of artistic conception. It connects the indoor and the outdoor freely, unifying the landscape and architecture.
The entrance gives up traditional Chinese decorations and uses the simple lines to draw the outline of the buildings.
The first courtyard
The name of this courtyard is from the classics of guqin in Song dynasty. The courtyard is surrounded with water. The silhouette devices of the Dian Lake and the West Mountain can be symmetrical. It seems that we are in the center of the Dian Lake with the sound of fisherman’s song. It has an artistic conception of silent mountains with birds’ voice and quiet forests with cicadas’ sound.
The second courtyard
There are 12 lagerstroemia trees planted face to face in the center of the courtyard, which symbolize the 12 months of a year. The lagerstroemia trees are elegant with clear trunks and gorgeous flowers, which forms a feeling of seriousness. The stepping stone in courtyard is made of fantasy gray stone. The texture of the stone is like the sea wave. It is just like walking in the waves. The waste stone is like mountain, the break stone is like water and the stepping stone is like sea wave. The house selling office’s external wall is decorated with elements of the Dian Lake and the Wet Mountain. There is a scene in water. It forms strong contrast to the water surface with its simple and clear shape and colour. The fishing boat and its inverted image show different images with the change of time. When the setting sun shines, the fisherman’s song appears. We can have a lot of imagination in this blank of the landscape. Groups of seagulls fly above the sea, while the sound of flying is like the coming of freedom. We use seagull as a prototype to make an installation with water scene and brass. At the same time, the spotlight will provide more beauty.
The third courtyard
“Mantingfang” is from the names of ci poems in Song dynasty. It is famous for the Wu Rong’s poem in Tang dynasty. It is also said that it is from the poems of Liu Zongyuan. It is the best name for courtyard. The whole courtyard is planted seasonal flowers and grasses. Along the courtyard, there is a weather tight corridor to the model houses. There are leaves shadow and flowers fragrance when we walk in it. The Zen of Song dynasty divides the Padipata into three states. The garden in front of the model houses has such a new explanation of the artistic conception on the water and the mountain.
The moment that the project is finished, this project begins to form the space with its own rules.
If we think over the development of Chinese landscape art, shall our designers set apart the space and imagination in the high density visual scenes by using the technique of blank? Shall the designers create a kind of poetic flavor of growing, climbing and folding to let people feel free in this busy world?
Entrant office name: Antao
Role of the entrant in the project: Landscape Design
Website: www.antaogroup.com
Project location (State or Country): China
Design year: 2017
Year Built: 2017
