Gardens and walls: history and morality in urban China

Yi Qiao

Landscape Research, 2024, vol. 49, issue 1, 115-128

Abstract: This anthropological-historical paper explores the oft-neglected inner connotations of morality and history as embedded in China’s historic landscape. Situated in the heritage city of Kaifeng, it reveals how local gardens not only are architectural imitations of this ancient capital, but also are connected to the nation’s past and mediate moral lessons. A deeper textual dimension is further exposed, with an examination of a dynastic record, as well as the rich historiographical corpus lying behind it, to which garden designers refer. The arguments appearing in such a textual and intellectual dimension are then explicated with regard to the city’s old walls. The walls, which are supposed to be formidable defensive facilities, now are viewed as the symbols of learning, virtue and civilisation in contrast to sheer militarism. A further discussion about pertinent ideas in Chinese thought finally discloses the richness of this historical-moral aspect of the city’s landscape.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01426397.2023.2252361 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:clarxx:v:49:y:2024:i:1:p:115-128

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/clar20

DOI: 10.1080/01426397.2023.2252361

Access Statistics for this article

Landscape Research is currently edited by Dr Anna Jorgensen

More articles in Landscape Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().