Gardens of Longevity In China & Japan [Hardcover]

Rizzoli (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 231 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli (September 15, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847808378
• ISBN-13: 978-0847808373
• Product Dimensions: 13.6 x 10.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,378,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Gardens of Longevity explains why a few designed landscapes are fabulous, March 27, 2007

By 

B. S. Hood "Insatiable reader" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gardens of Longevity In China & Japan (Hardcover)

Gardens of Longevity is a beautiful book which illustrates why some landscape design immediately looks spectacular and feels "right", while most landscape design feels dead. The book relies upon the iconography of landscape paintings and gardens in Japan and China, but the principles apply to all types of design (painting, sculpture, architecture, as well as landscape).

By analyzing original works of art and comparing them with western copies, the author explains the principles of allowing the dragon through. Those familiar with some branches of fung shui will understand that this means, in crude imagery, letting the good "chi" through and deflecting the bad "chi." However, what sounds like trendy gibberish to most scientific types, actually finds visual proof in this book.

I am a successful practicing architect, who marries the design of landscape with my buildings and urban designs. This book comes closer to explaining how to do this, and why some landscapes (natural and human-made) are so spectacular and most are humdrum or worse than any other book I know of on this subject.

The book also contains many examples to explain Chinese landscape painting to westeners which give us the aesthetics to "see" and then value an aesthetic tradition different from that of western Europe.

Incredibly, one example from the book, on a larger, geological scale, illustrated by the river drainage of China, explains why the country is killing the dragon which has sustained it for thousands of years, by damming and polluting the Yangtze, Yellow, and other rivers.

I can't say enough good things about this book. It's just marvelous. I have gone back to it many times to refresh my knowledge and to review the examples.

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars rock in Chinese, January 25, 2000

By 

davidren (Beijing ,China) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gardens of Longevity In China & Japan (Hardcover)

I would like to read the digist about book. I am interested in rock in garded in China.