A Paradise Lost: The Imperial Garden Yuanming Yuan

Chapter 3. Expansion

Chapter 3 Expansion The Qianlong emperor considered his garden project complete when he designated in 1744 the Forty (Best) views, a kaleidoscopic series of selected scenic spots in the Yuanming Yuan. But, actually, the emperor’s extraordinary passion for building more gardens had just begun. In addition to the summer retreat at Chengde and the Skinny West Lake (Shuo Xihu) in Yangzhou, he expanded the Yuanming Yuan so much that it eventually consisted of many more dozens of smaller gardens and distinct scenic units. Each unit had its own style and theme, but without losing a general sense of integrity. One scenic area overlapped another, with adjacent areas half-closed from and halfopen to each other, thus resulting in the simultaneous impression of sequence and cohesion. Clearly, when the emperor was unable to restrain himself from endless garden constructions , no one dared to stop him. Perhaps more important, the empire of Qianlong’s time was still rich enough to satisfy, or justify, his passion for gardens (cf. Sugimura 1961, 218–223). The Eternal Spring Garden The year 1749 marked the beginning of the great expansion of the Yuanming Yuan. It set the stage for including 1,059 acres of land to the east soon to be called the Eternal Spring Garden (Changchun Yuan), named after Qianlong’s boyhood residence, the Eternal Spring Fairy Hall (Changchun Xian’guan). This huge annex was designed and built from blueprint as the most comprehensive and costly single project in the garden’s history. The justification was Qianlong’s need to have a retirement home, as he promised to abdicate at the age of eighty-five, having completed sixty years of his reign (Yu Mingzhong 1985, 3:1380). His retirement, however, was still more than forty years away when the Eternal Spring Garden was completed in 1751, and in the years up to Qianlong’s retirement, it would become an integral part of the Yuan-| 51  ming Yuan. Because this particular garden was constructed for the emperor’s retirement, the entire design stressed pleasure. Delightful structures of various sorts featured the fascinating Daoist aesthetic Administrative buildings, which were abundant in the original Yuanming Yuan, were absent from the Eternal Spring Garden. If the Yuanming Yuan proper can justifiably be called a water garden, the Eternal Spring Garden appears even more deserving of such a name.The design was based on a lively large water space divided into irregular shapes by numerous isles and sandbars connected by bridges and banks. Construction began with the Classics Hall (Hanjing Tang) and the Homely Memorial Hall (Danhuai Tang) on a large open field east of the Shuimo Village, which was located adjacent to the Yuanming Yuan’s east gate, known as the Bright Spring Gate (Mingchun Men). To make the Eternal Spring Garden look like an imperial garden, a palatial front gate about five columns wide was constructed, together with a pair of kylin standing on white jade stands. Like the front gate of the original Yuanming Yuan, it also has two wings of o‰ces outside the gate (Yu Mingzhong 1985, 3:1379–1380; Cheng Yansheng 1928, 30a). But this palatial gate was rarely used because it was more convenient for the emperor and his entourage to pass through the Bright Spring Gate, which directly linked the two sections of the imperial garden. Figure 30. Overview of Changchun Yuan (Eternal Spring Garden) showing the four best-known scenes and the European section in the north. Plan by Sylvia Lu Wong with reference to the map in YMYJ 1987, 1. 52 | A rc h i t e c t u re 1. HAIYUE KAIJIN 2. CHUNHUA XUAN 3. YULINGLONG GUAN 4. SHIZI LIN 1 2 3 4 N Striding through the front gate into the precincts, immediately visible was the ninecolumn Broad-Minded Hall with two side halls and the South Long River (Nan Changhe) at its back. To the west side of the hall, was a ten-hole stone bridge, approximately forty meters long, known as the Eternal Spring Bridge (Changchun Qiao), crossing the river. Over the bridge was the central islet, the largest in the Eternal Spring Garden, on which stood a large compound of buildings comparable in size to the Nine Continents, or approximately 10 percent of the entire Eternal Spring Garden. In the compound was a pair of two main buildings, the Classics Hall (Hanjing Tang) to the south and the...