Designing Minds 17: Courtyard Patterns
(2000)
What do clay roofing tiles and pebbles have to do with paving a
courtyard? At first blush, not much--that is, until you've strolled through
the Wu Jiang Gardens near Shanghai, which I was fortunate enough to visit
last month.
I was struck by the astonishing array of courtyard paving patterns that
the Chinese masters had created with the deceptively simple elements of
rounded clay roofing tiles, pebbles and bricks.
While large-scale classic Japanese garden designs, such as Katsura
Imperial Garden in Kyoto, typically include artfully arranged views
reached by meandering walkways, the urban Wu Jiang gardens and Yu Yuan
Garden in old Shanghai pack their surprises and views into a connected
series of courtyards.
As you wander through the maze-like courtyards, you are first
impressed by the careful attention the planners paid to constructing a
sense of mystery within small spaces: high walls pierced by narrow
doorways, small villas, curving bridges and set-piece aggregates of
natural stone are folded into the landscaping with such sublime unity that
it takes a moment to realize how different each courtyard is from the
previous one.
In many cases, the courtyard was constructed around a central feature,
such as a pond or rock outcropping, which is viewed from an attendant
villa; in others, smaller features such as narrow bridges, small-scale
landscapes and stepping stones form a composition meant to be explored
on foot.
Eventually you notice how the paving design differs from courtyard to
courtyard, and begin to marvel at the richness of the variations achieved
on a geometric theme with the simplest of materials: dark gray clay
bricks, pebbles, both smooth and rough, and gray roofing tiles set into the
earth so only the crescent-shaped end is visible.
In one pattern, thin gray bricks form six interlocking triangles filled
with rough pebbles around hexagons of embedded smooth river rocks.
In another, eight curved roofing tiles have been joined into a diamond-
shaped design set inside a circle; each of these occupies a corner in a grid
of squares, alternately filled with rough and smooth pebbles.
Some designs are formal patterns of interlocking octagons and smaller
squares; others are more organic designs, such as one of curved roofing
tiles in a four-leaf-clover pattern surrounded by thin hand-laid fired clay
rectangles which are also buried vertically.
Others are simplicity itself: alternating squares of smooth brick and
more irregular, smaller rectangles of dark gray fired clay.
On occasion, a large design of the same simple materials occupies the
center of the courtyard, breaking the symmetry of the pattern to great
effect. In one such plan, a circle formed by thin bricks set edge to edge is
differentiated from the surrounding geometry not only by shape but by the
color of the smooth pebbles filling the outline of the circle.
In all cases, the patterns of the courtyard paving are created not by
large flat bricks or wide stones as in the West or Japan, but by small
pieces of tile, brick or stones painstakingly assembled into surfaces
which retains both a fine-grained texture and a large-scale formality.
The surface can thus be enjoyed both at a distance--for example, upon
entering the courtyard or viewed from a second-floor villa--and close at
hand as you walk about the courtyard.
The designers also took care to soften the formality of their complex
geometric patterns by placing the hard, flat plane of the courtyard paving
within the organic curves and irregular edges of natural stones and
waterways. In small spaces where this was impractical, such as in
entryways or passages, they broke up the linear boredom by setting the
paving squares at 45-degree angles to the surrounding walls.
By setting the pieces edge up, not only did the builders exploit the
satisfying scale of small pieces assembled into larger patterns but they
also constructed a deepset, highly durable and easily repaired surface.
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