Lingering Garden
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The Lingering Garden is one of the four most famous gardens in Suzhou, one of the four most famous gardens in China and listed in the World Cultural Heritage. It is the most complete in structure among all the famous gardens at present and residential section, ancestral hall, private Buddhist convent and garden are all available.
The Lingering garden was first built in the reign of Wanli (1573--1619) of Ming Dynasty by Xu Taishi, a bureaucrat, and named East Garden. In the reign of Qianlong and Jiajing of Qing Dynasty (1736—1820), the garden, noted for the green bamboo and the glittering surface of the lake, belonged to Liu Yuan, Dongshan people. As many lacebark pines were planted and gave people an impression of desolation and the philosopher of the former Dynasty, Han Wenyi attempted to renamed "the Hanbi Xuan (small room in Chinese), the owner of the garden gave it a new name "the Hanbi Villa". And it was also called “the Huabu Xiao Zhu" because it was located in Huabuli. In the reign of Tongzi and Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1862—1908), the garden was purchased and expanded by Sheng Kang, a administrative minister in charge of civil affairs of Hubei Province in ancient China. Since "lingering" in Chinese sounds similar to "Liu", the surname of the former owner, Sheng kang gave it a new name "the Lingering Garden (lingering in the world)".
Covering an area of 23.310 square meters, the Lingering Garden is renowned for the artistic way in which the spaces between various kinds of architectural form are dealt with well and forms a measured and rhythmical spatial system, which becomes a world-known model. Today the garden is separated into the eastern part featuring architecture, the central part featuring the landscape garden , the western part featuring rockery made of mud and rock and the northern part featuring idyllic scenes.　Visitors can enter into the garden from the middle entrance and reach the spacious and bright courtyard after passing a zigzag and dark corridor and taking several turns. There are six windows with ornamental frame that nearly cover up the garden scenery in the wicket, on the wall of which a plaque writes “staying in the heaven and the earth forever". Through the panes of the window, the garden scenery can be seen. Taking a turn in the west, you can reach the Shade Porch. In the west of the garden, a corridor ascends along the lie of the hill. Dozens of model calligraphic works written by Wang Xizhi and his son, Wang Xianzhi , also called"Er Wang( Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi) model calligraphy" were engraved by Dong Qichang of the Ming Dynasty on the stonewall in the west side of the corridor. The Wenmuxixiang Porch is the summit of the middle part of the Lingering Garden, overlooking the Quxi House, the Qingfengchi House and the Yuancui House which are different in height. The main buildings of the central part of the garden are the Mingse Building and the Hanbi Villa.The eastern part of the garden takes the construction as the center and it is also the essence of the whole garden. The Wufengxian Hall is the biggest hall of the garden and is known as "the first hall of the Jiangnan region", surrounded by the Return-to-Read Study, the Jiyun Hill, the Jigudegeng House, the West House and the Crane House. The Wufengxian Hall and the Stone Forest Yard that is located between the Wufengxian Hall and the Linquanjishuo Hall are considered as the essence of the Lingering Garden by the experts. There are many famous peaks in the garden that form very attractive scenery. “The Three Peaks (the Guanyun Peak, the Ruiyun Peak and the Quyun Peak) of the Lingering Garden"are located in the north of the Linquanjishuozhi Hall and the Guanyun Peak is the most famous of them.The western part of the garden features the natural scenery where the rockery was piled by stones in the Ming Dynasty and the red leaves of the maple tree are like brocade in the fall. The northern part of the garden features idyllic scenes and is now a bonsai garden in which many bonsai of Su School are put on display. A 700-meter long winding corridor connects the four parts of the Lingering Garden. On the wall of the corridor, above 300 steles of the famous calligraphers of the former dynasties were engraved and called “the Lingering Garden model calligraphy". In addition, other constructions include the Chuanjin Hall, the Juanshishan House, the Tingyu Building, the Jujun Pavilion, the Hanqing Building, the Banye Thatched Cottage and the Haopu Pavilion.
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Its long history and rich culture make it different to other attractions. View Details