Boston Flora

Tag: Chinese gardens

  • Wednesday, March 11, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Mythical Gardens: Mythical Chinese Gardens, Online

    Join The Gardens Trust for a new four part series wandering through allegorical gardens with Dr David Marsh

    In a garden, art, science, nature and the mind collide. It is no surprise then, that many stories in ancient religions and philosophies are set in gardens. Christians believe that the Garden of Eden once existed before Adam and Eve were expelled from it, while the Hanging Garden of Babylon has captivated the creative imagination of humans for centuries, as have legends about the Gardens of the Hesperides in the ancient Mediterranean world. Like ancient Chinese stories about the magical gardens on Mount Kunlun and its counterpart Mount Penglai, they all reflect the complex interaction between the human and divine worlds. In this series we will not only be looking be looking at the myths themselves but also, where possible, the reality that lay behind them and their impact on gardens more recently. This ticket costs £28 for the entire course of 4 sessions, or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions, costing £8 [Gardens Trust members £21 or £6 each]. Register at www.eventbrite.co.uk. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 2 weeks) will be sent shortly afterwards.

    Many gardens in Chinese mythology have a cosmic role connecting earth to the heavens and underworld. Ancient stories tell how most are in inaccessible places such as high mountains, or islands that float away when anyone nears them, and how they serve as homes to deities and immortals. Others are hidden utopias where humans and nature are at one. Although very varied in style and imagery, these gardens usually include features such as peach trees which bear fruit that confers the gift of eternal life, magical lakes and streams, caves and grottos, moon gates as symbolic entrances, winding paths, layered mountain terraces and strange animals and plants. These mythical gardens still have a profound effect on the way that Chinese gardens are designed today.

  • Wednesday, March 19, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm Eastern – From Beijing to Europe: Chinese Gardens and the Rise of Chinoiserie, Online

    In a special three-part virtual series for the Garden Conservancy this winter, Professor Andrew Hui explores fascinating yet overlooked history of the Western Gardens at the Chinese Emperor’s Summer Palace in the eighteenth century. Over the course of three episodes, he will explore the unexpected story of how these vast gardens came to be designed by Jesuit priests and how they influence the development of Europe’s own gardens.

    Part 3: From Beijing to Europe: Chinese Gardens and the Rise of Chinoiserie

    March 19, 2026 I 12 noon Eastern

    While Jesuits introduced European designs to the Qing court, Chinese gardens themselves profoundly shaped Europe. Jesuit letters back to Europe described landscapes of winding paths, asymmetry, and surprise, a sharp contrast to Versailles’ rigid geometry. These ideas—captured in the English neologism “sharawadgi”—helped spark the English landscape movement and a wave of chinoiserie across Europe. This final lecture traces the paradox: the Summer Palace absorbed European mazes and fountains, even as Europe reimagined itself through the Chinese garden. Together, these exchanges reveal gardens as a global art form in the early modern world.

    Andrew Hui teaches at National University of Singapore and is the author of three books: The Study: The Inner Life of Renaissance Libraries (2025), A Theory of the Aphorism from Confucius to Twitter (2019, translated into 4 languages), and The Poetics of Ruins in Renaissance Literature (2017). His newest project is The Emperor’s Maze: The Jesuits in China and the Making of a Global Age (under contract, Penguin Press).

    Andrew is an experienced public speaker who has lectured widely, including recent talks at Yale, Oxford, and Brown universities, as well as online for the Medici Archive Project, the Smithsonian, and the 92nd Street Y.

    You will receive the webinar link directly from Zoom. A recording of this webinar will be sent to all registrants a few days after the event. We encourage you to register, even if you cannot attend the live webinar. Register at https://www.gardenconservancy.org/events/web26-the-emperor-s-western-maze-and-the-making-of-a-global-garden

  • Thursday, February 26, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm Eastern – The Maze: Jesuits, Emperors, and the Invention of the Western Style Gardens in China, Online

    In a special three-part virtual series for the Garden Conservancy this winter, Professor Andrew Hui explores fascinating yet overlooked history of the Western Gardens at the Chinese Emperor’s Summer Palace in the eighteenth century. Over the course of three episodes, he will explore the unexpected story of how these vast gardens came to be designed by Jesuit priests and how they influence the development of Europe’s own gardens.

    Part 2: The Maze: Jesuits, Emperors, and the Invention of the Western Style Gardens in China

    February 26, 2026 I 12 noon Eastern

    In the early eighteenth century, Jesuit missionaries astonished the Qing court by designing a European-style maze in the Summer Palace. What began as a playful mimicry soon expanded into an entire quarter of Western-style gardens: fountains, cabinets of curiosities, and perspective vistas unlike anything in China before. This lecture tells the story of how Jesuits, armed with mathematics, hydraulics, and the technique of linear perspectives, became imperial garden makers—and how their creations embodied wonder, diplomacy, and power at the meeting point of two civilizations.

    Andrew Hui teaches at National University of Singapore and is the author of three books: The Study: The Inner Life of Renaissance Libraries (2025), A Theory of the Aphorism from Confucius to Twitter (2019, translated into 4 languages), and The Poetics of Ruins in Renaissance Literature (2017). His newest project is The Emperor’s Maze: The Jesuits in China and the Making of a Global Age (under contract, Penguin Press).

    Andrew is an experienced public speaker who has lectured widely, including recent talks at Yale, Oxford, and Brown universities, as well as online for the Medici Archive Project, the Smithsonian, and the 92nd Street Y.

    You will receive the webinar link directly from Zoom. A recording of this webinar will be sent to all registrants a few days after the event. We encourage you to register, even if you cannot attend the live webinar. Register at https://www.gardenconservancy.org/events/web26-the-emperor-s-western-maze-and-the-making-of-a-global-garden

  • Thursday, January 29, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm Eastern – The Summer Palace: Beijing and its Creators, Online

    n a special three-part virtual series for the Garden Conservancy this winter, Professor Andrew Hui explores fascinating yet overlooked history of the Western Gardens at the Chinese Emperor’s Summer Palace in the eighteenth century. Over the course of three episodes, he will explore the unexpected story of how these vast gardens came to be designed by Jesuit priests and how they influence the development of Europe’s own gardens.

    Part 1: The Summer Palace: Beijing and its Creators

    January 29, 2026 I 12 noon Eastern

    The Garden of Perfect Brightness (Yuanmingyuan), better known as the Summer Palace, was the most ambitious garden complex in imperial China. Conceived by the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, it brought together traditional Chinese landscape art from all parts of its sprawling empire. This talk introduces the palace’s vast grounds and classical Chinese gardens—pavilions, lakes, and rockeries that embodied dynastic authority and literati aesthetics. We will set the stage for the drama of cultural exchange that would soon reshape its landscapes.

    Andrew Hui teaches at National University of Singapore and is the author of three books: The Study: The Inner Life of Renaissance Libraries (2025), A Theory of the Aphorism from Confucius to Twitter (2019, translated into 4 languages), and The Poetics of Ruins in Renaissance Literature (2017). His newest project is The Emperor’s Maze: The Jesuits in China and the Making of a Global Age (under contract, Penguin Press).

    Andrew is an experienced public speaker who has lectured widely, including recent talks at Yale, Oxford, and Brown universities, as well as online for the Medici Archive Project, the Smithsonian, and the 92nd Street Y.

    You will receive the webinar link directly from Zoom.

    A recording of this webinar will be sent to all registrants a few days after the event. We encourage you to register, even if you cannot attend the live webinar. Register now at https://www.gardenconservancy.org/events/web26-the-emperor-s-western-maze-and-the-making-of-a-global-garden

  • Tuesdays, July 9 – July 30, 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm – Chinese Painting and Garden History Workshop

    The Landscape Institute at Boston Architectural College will take a workshop on the road at Elm Bank, 900 Washington Street in Wellesley, on four successive Tuesdays, July 9 – 30, from 6 – 9.  Entitled Chinese Painting and Garden History Workshop, this rich seminar is collaboratively taught by Chinese landscape historian YoYi Chen and landscape painter Ma Qingxiong.  His work is shown below. This unique offering is a creative course, exposing students to historical concepts in Chinese landscape design, such as using multiple viewpoints and evocative juxtapositions, as well as teaching participants to compose artistic landscape ink drawings.  The format is a combination of lectures, demonstrations, and workshop painting in the gardens.  $300.  To register, log on to www.the-bac.edu/LI.

    http://www.maqingxiong.com/images/artwork_landing_1.jpg

  • Wednesday, February 13, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm – Chinese Gardens

    Landscape designer Lynette Tsiang will give a presentation on Chinese gardens with an emphasis on historical context and design principles. She will cover the many versions of the Chinese garden, from urban renewal and contemporary parks to classical Scholar Gardens. The presentation will be the centerpiece of the Somerville Garden Club February meeting on Wednesday, February 13 from 7 – 9 at the Tufts Administration building, 167 Holland Street in Somerville.  All SGC meetings are free, and the public is invited to attend. Meetings include club announcements, a plant question and answer segment, and a raffle of donated plants and garden-related items.

    Onsite parking is available and the building is a short walk from the Davis Square Red Line T stop. Meetings are on the second floor, wheelchair accessible.

  • Tuesday, March 2, 10:00 am – Chinese Gardens

    Lynette Tsiang, a landscape designer who uses Asian design principles and plants to create New England gardens with echoes of the Far East, will present a slideshow presentation on Tuesday, March 2, beginning at 10 am at South Church, 41 Central Street in Andover, MA, featuring six unique garden areas of China. Attendees will vicariously visit the vernacular landscape of Jingxi (1130), considered a Chinese Venice, and will also examine six classical scholar gardens located in Suzhou. Design techniques unique to Chinese gardens will be discussed.

    A graduate of the Landscape Institute of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Lynette Tsiang is a residential landscape designer who operates Lynette Tsiang Landscape Design in Lexington. She specializes in designing Asian-style, shade, and water gardens, and also designs public and memorial gardens.  She is a member of The New England Landscape Design & the Community Outreach Group for Landscape Design (COGdesign).

    This program is sponsored by the Andover Garden Club, and is free to Andover Garden Club members, and $5 for public admission.  For more information, you may call 978-470-2627, or email bettychapman@verizon.net.  Directions to South Church may be found at www.southchurch.com.