From Temples to Garden Estates and Academies

How did the temple-scape of Suzhou transform into garden-scape during the 13th to 16th centuries? This book investigates the landscape evolution of China during the Yuan-Ming socio-political transformation and provides a previously unrepresented Buddhist and hydraulic history of Chinese gardens.

Pania Yanjie Mu is a postdoctoral research associate at the Institute of East Asian Art History, Heidelberg University, Germany, and co-founder of P. M. Architects. She received her PhD from the Faculty of Architecture, the University of Hong Kong.

Introduction 1. Garden Estates: Transforming Urban Hydrology 2. Constructing the Temple-scape 3. Converting Temples into Literati Gardens 4. Converting Temples into Confucian Institutions 5. From Buddhist to Gentry Society. Conclusion: A New Garden History: Hydro-Social Transformation Illuminated by 3D Modelling and GIS Mapping