Summary

With their centuries-long development, the English landscape garden, the formal French garden, as well Japanese and Chinese gardens constitute an unparalleled repository of design solutions familiar throughout the world. They are frequently drawn upon as reference works, but often in a piecemeal and haphazard fashion and from botanical or art-historical vantage points.

That is where the books of this new series come in. They present the various garden types from the perspective of contemporary landscape and garden design. Starting from the formidable beauty of the world's most distinguished gardens, they point the way toward the essential compositional principles, the plants most commonly utilized and their most characteristic uses, and the possibilities for employing them in contemporary projects, thus providing readers with a rich source of inspiration for their own designs and creations.

The panorama of "The Chinese Garden" stretches from the surviving historical gardens all the way to such modern examples as the garden at the Bank of China in Hong Kong (designed by I. M. Pei), Ai Weiwei's Yiwu Riverbank Park, the Garden of Flowering Fragrance in the Los Angeles, California, region and the Garden of Awakening Orchids in Portland, Oregon.

Choice Review

The author's background is the key to this analysis of gardens in China: Rinaldi (Univ. of Camerino, Italy) is a scholar of landscape architecture. The book's chapters, "Evolution and Topology," "Composition and Effects," "Elements," "Reconfiguring the Chinese Garden," and "Short Portraits of Parks and Gardens," present her views on the rules of distribution, proportions, and relations guiding the use of the material elements in a Chinese garden. The historical approach, with descriptions of gardens built during several early dynasties and ending in modern times, sets the parameters for understanding function and use. An important insight in this book is embedded in the discussions involving spatial articulation accomplished by scenic views designed to draw the garden visitor into a visual experience. A strength is the discussion of the influence of Chinese garden traditions on contemporary garden and park design. Plants are discussed within the context of elements used in garden construction, but more information in this section would have been helpful. Excellent photographs and plans make an important contribution to this valuable book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals; two-year technical program students. L. G. Kavaljian California State University, Sacramento