The gardens made on the fringes of Central Asia in the past 5000
years form a great arc. From the Fertile Crescent, it runs west to
Europe and east to China and Japan. Asia's fringe was a zone of
interchange: a vast landscape in which herders encountered farmers
and the design of symbolic gardens began. It appears that as they
became settlers, nomads retained a love of mobility, hunting and
the wild places in which their ancestors had roamed. Central Asian
and Indian ideas influenced the garden culture of China, Japan and
South East Asia.
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In West Asia, Aryan settlers made hunting parks known as paradises.
They were walled enclosures stocked with exotic plants and animals.
In East Asia, great landscape parks were used for similar purposes
and had a sacred role. Across Asia, gardens were influenced by
religious and other beliefs: polytheist, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim,
Daoist, Shinto and Modernist. Early parks and gardens symbolized
wild and civilized nature, sometimes conceived as the realms of the
Sky God and the Earth Mother. Asian Gardens: History, Beliefs and
Design explores the ways in which designs were guided by
beliefs.
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Tom Turner has been researching and teaching the theory and history
of garden design for some forty years. His visits, research,
drawings and photographs are brought together in detailed studies
of West Asia, South Asia and East Asia. The period covered extends
from the earliest gardens to the present. Using maps, diagrams and
photographs, the author explores how and why Asian gardens
developed their characteristic forms and functions. Treating garden
design as a 'word and image' subject, the account is coherent,
comparative and readable. Further details of all the gardens are
available on the gardenvisit.com website, which the author
edits.
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