He introduced the remaining veins of Taihang Mountain into the interior to create a 3,000-square-meter garden, which is absolutely beautiful
"Post-80s" architect Wang Baozhen, born in rural Henan,
After graduating from Peking University, he taught at the School of Architecture of Zhengzhou University.
I have been engaged in gardening practice for more than 15 years.
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At the beginning of this year, the snow scene of Donglu Park
Photo: Wang Dan
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Wang Baozhen is in Donglu Park
Donglu Garden, where he has spent the most effort so far,
This year, it was built at the foot of Taihang Mountain, nearly 3,000 square meters,
Introduce the remnants of Taihang Mountain into the garden and indoors,
Create a unique rough and vigorous garden in the north.
In autumn, one came to the East Foot Garden,
Visit the garden with Wang Baozhen,
also walked into the top of Taihang Mountain,
Take a deep dive into a way of building that is rooted in the local area.
Editor: Ye Li
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Taihang Mountain Grand Canyon "Hanging Wall Highway"
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The main garden of Donglu Garden and Taihang Mountain
Photo: Sun Haiting
Coming out of Anyang North Railway Station in Henan Province, and driving for more than 1 hour, we walked with the architect Wang Baozhen all the way to Donglu Park. Walking through the undulating lobby, I can't wait to walk into the garden, and when I look up, I will see the majestic Taihang - it lies like a giant.
Taihang Mountain, how much energy does it contain? A joke on the Internet said, "People from Shanxi, Henan and Hebei, when they feel that they are not very good, they go to Taihang Mountain!" ”
Eight hundred miles of Taihang, the Loess Plateau on the top, the vast North China Plain below, is the "spine of the world" in the geographical sense; And because of the singing and singing of the literati of the previous dynasties, coupled with the Eighth Route Army's establishment of the Jin-Cha-Ji revolutionary base here to resist aggression, the Henan people built the "Heavenly Road" and "Artificial Tianhe" Red Flag Canal here, giving Taihang Mountain profound cultural and spiritual significance, worthy of the "backbone of China".
A house at the foot of Taihang Mountain, how to borrow scenery and build a garden?
Architect Wang Baozhen said, "If you catch the ruggedness and majesty of Taihang Mountain, you will catch the beauty of Taihang Mountain", and "rise because of the place".
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Wang Baozhen picks apples with the children who came to visit the garden
Wang Baozhen was born in rural Henan, and his study of architecture was entirely accidental, he was good at mathematics and thought that he would use a lot of calculations to study architecture. His innate sensitivity to nature and his emphasis on vernacular construction led him all the way to Peking University, where he studied garden architecture under Dong Yugan, a contemporary gardener, and explored the road of gardening for more than ten years.
After graduating from graduate school in 2008, he settled in Zhengzhou, where he practiced as a teacher at the School of Architecture of Zhengzhou University. He is kind and sincere, and he speaks very down-to-earth. When he walked around the garden, he saw apples hanging on the branches, and he couldn't wait to pick them and hand them to us to try.
When he arrived at Donglu Garden, his first sentence introduced, "This is biological, not adopted", because from design to construction for more than 4 years, spanning the construction cycle of the epidemic, he participated in the whole process, and ate and lived with the workers on the construction site during the summer vacation.
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Wang Baozhen walks in the garden
Having been in the construction industry for almost 20 years, he lamented that this design and construction was difficult, but it was of great significance. In the past, several gardens were private gardens, and to put it bluntly, after completion, they were basically exclusive to the owner.
This time it is different, the owner of the garden has given great financial and energy support, and it will be operated as a hotel in the future, that is, the garden will be open to the public to experience. This is what he would like to see the most - let a good building and a good garden be seen and used by more people.
He regards Donglu Garden as one of the most important works to date. Teacher Dong Yugan also boasted in private, this is "your best completed work at present". This year's "Nature Creation · The judges of the Architecture China Award presented the "Youth Exploration Award" to the architect, who had just passed his age of confusion, and the award citation reads, "He combines the exploration of traditional gardens and contemporary architecture in a simple way, blurring the boundaries between architecture and landscape." ”
The following is Wang Baozhen's own statement.
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Wang Baozhen was interviewed
In the summer of 2019, my student introduced me to a friend in Linzhou, Henan Province. The owner of the house soon called me and told me that his hometown was at the foot of Taihang Mountain, two old houses, plus a backyard, and he wanted to integrate the courtyard and the house for a transformation.
As soon as I heard that I was building a house at the foot of Taihang Mountain, from the perspective of physiognomy, it was a mountain woodland, which was too good a piece of land, I was very excited and readily agreed.
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The original slope of the site and terraced fruit forest, in the distance is Taihang Mountain
The first time I arrived at the venue, I was mixed, and I was happy that I was really standing in the small courtyard of the owner's house, looking up at Taihang Mountain; Worryingly, the mountain woodland I imagined was completely absent, and only a few pieces of dilapidated terraces and slopes remained.
At that time, when I thought about it, it was precisely because of the mixed joys and sorrows that I had the urge to challenge. What's more, the owner of the house is ready to wait for the garden to grow and operate it in a hotel mode, with more than ten rooms arranged on the second floor, and the first floor is a public space, which is completely open to the public.
Finally, it's time to build a public garden.
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Lobby on the ground floor
Photo: Sun Haiting
"Use the site to connect the tendons and veins of Taihang Mountain", this is the first thing I want to do, that is, to introduce the remaining veins of Taihang Mountain into the garden, and even into the interior.
The building was renovated on the original site of the old house, and was designed according to the topography, which I call "rejuvenating from the land".
Entering the lobby on the first floor, it was originally a sloping ground and transformed into a terrace, and you go up the stone steps as if you are in the middle of the room.
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Upper and middle pictures: Scattered rough stones can be seen everywhere
Below: Sunken salon space
Photo: Sun Haiting
To the east, there is a café on one side, which is completely open to the garden and Taihang Mountain. Going inward, the slope is steeper, and the sunken salon space is made in combination with the slope.
There are also a few natural rocks scattered in the room, as if when the base is cleared, they are naturally exposed, looking down at the rocks and looking up at the mountains.
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Aerial view of Donglu Park
When you enter the garden, you can open and close.
In the middle is a pool, surrounded by natural stacked stones, nearly two meters above the water surface, like a mountain wall.
With the help of the terraces that exist in the site, it is only necessary to dig down more than one meter to create a two-meter-high pond wall. There are also some revetments by the pond for people to sit and look at Taihang Mountain.
On the south side, a rockery is stacked and made of local stones, which seems to be a small residual vein of Taihang Mountain here.
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In the garden, people are very close to the water
In the southwest corner, there is a hidden water mouth, where you can hear the sound, but it is very hidden. The water that comes down from the waterfall is like flowing down from the Taihang Mountains.
After the water comes down, it turns around the big rock to form a large water surface. After that, it was divided into two branches, one into a deep ditch, and the other into a small stone pool in the lobby, and walked out along the terrain.
The path of the water in the garden is stretched long, and from the outside, it seems that there is no end to the water, which is called "the endless water of water" in the garden.
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Gaps
On the east side, a ramp in the original site is retained, and a "gorge gap" is formed through two stone walls. When you look at Taihang Mountain from here, it's like passing through a cave. Between the two stone walls, several huge stones were built to make a structure for Rachel.
Walking up or running up from the ramp, the big rocks above your head give you the illusion of walking in the canyon; If you just happen to encounter the sound of running water from the ditch outside the wall, there is an artistic conception of crossing the Grand Canyon of Taihang Mountain.
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Four rolls of mountains and forests
Photo: Ke Yunfeng
Up to the terraced rice fields at the heights, there are also many different paths, different pleasures, and different tastes.
The boundary of the garden, "Four Volumes of Mountains and Forests". Because outside the park is the small slope under the Taihang Mountain, although the locust tree on the slope is not big, but the depth of the forest is very moving, it is framed with four arches.
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Above: Qiyan and Yating, photo by Sun Haiting
Bottom: Yating, photo: Gao Leilei
The other border, the "Yatei", is also one of my favorite corners, and I sit there with half of my body out of this garden.
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On the second floor, there is a ceremonial cave corridor
Photo: Sun Haiting
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The rooms face the garden
If you look at it from the top, you will see the layout of the entire house in the shape of an L-shape, which has been remodeled according to the direction of the original dilapidated house.
On the second floor, more than 10 rooms are arranged. Because the other houses on the south side are close to each other, the windows cannot be opened in the south direction, so the corridor is placed on the south side, and the roof sky light is used to form a corridor with a sense of ceremony. Each terrace is designed to borrow scenery from Taihang Mountain.
Taihang Mountain has always been a sketching resort, Jing Hao, who pioneered the Northern Landscape Painting School in the fifth generation, is said to have lived in seclusion in Taihang Mountain all year round. If the painters who come to sketch want to hold a small exhibition during their stay, the mezzanine on the second floor can also be turned into an exhibition gallery.
In the whole site, the relationship between the indoor space and the outdoor environment is the place where the real effort is spent, and it no longer matters what the shape of the house itself looks like or whether it is strange or not.
The entire scheme design was done for 4 months, followed by 2 months of construction drawing design, from May 2020 to the official construction, the construction during the epidemic was intermittent, and in the first half of 2023, the indoor and outdoor spaces were completed, and the civil construction alone took more than 3 years.
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Hoisting stones, the second from the left is Wang Baozhen
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In the process of stacking stones, the second from the right is Wang Baozhen
When the walls were built, I lived here for a whole summer.
After the stones were brought back, I picked them on the spot, and it took me about 10 minutes to determine which stone was used where. Then, the two eldest brothers are in charge of tying stones, which is also a technical job.
After the crane came over, I ran to the other side and told the other two big brothers who loaded the stones how to place them and which side to face in which direction.
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The masonry process of rubble walls
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The old craftsman surnamed Zhao is over eighty years old
I really like to build my house from the materials that I am familiar with, and the stones on the walls of the pond come from the nearby barren mountains. The rubble wall is the local rubble.
The local masters who have been helping the villagers build houses are very good at craftsmanship. They all came from the Zhao family, and the eldest was the three brothers, with their son and nephew, about six or seven people, who finished building all the rough stone walls in the garden.
I named them "Zhao Jiaban". One of them, Brother Zhao, is in his 80s and still walks on the construction site every day.
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Use slate to make the roof
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The ancient dwellings of Dayuan Village at the top of Taihang
A common practice in local houses, this time it was also used in Donglu Garden. One of the roofs of the outdoor half-pavilion is a kind of stone slab produced in Taihang Mountain, which is three or five centimeters thick.
The first time I noticed that the local people used slate as tiles was in my second year as a teacher at the School of Architecture of Zhengzhou University. That year, I took my students to do surveying and mapping of ancient buildings in Taihang Mountain, and found those old houses of the Ming and Qing dynasties in the ancient villages in the depths, all of which were built with rubble stone walls, and the roofs were covered with stone slabs.
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Hexagonal Pavilion
Photo: Sun Haiting
When I was building the pavilion, I chose to use concrete, trying to see if I could make a pavilion that was not dull with what people thought was a heavy material. The "legs" of the pavilion are very special, as if the foot is pedaling a big stone, and the big stone and the stepping stone in the water below are twisted in one direction, creating a danger visually, but in fact, the structure is stable.
The reason why it is a hexagonal pavilion is that it has exactly six sides, each of which faces a major view of the garden.
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Stone walls and stone paving, thick and fine
Photo: Sun Haiting
It is really true that one side of the water and soil raises one person. No matter how delicate the character of the northerners is, if you want to measure the fineness of the Suzhou garden, it will definitely not be possible in the north. The stone itself alone is not the same in the north and in the south.
However, it is precisely because there is no such delicate thing that the craftsmen of the north will have another kind of loveliness.
Their personalities, just like the Zhao people in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period described in the book, are very upright and straightforward, and they don't speak in a small tone, they shout on the construction site, do things vigorously, and don't drag mud and water.
If you can catch the rough and thick, then you will catch the beauty of Taihang Mountain, and also grasp the temperament of this northern garden and architecture.
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In 2007, Mr. Dong Yugan took students on a study tour in Suzhou Garden
After failing the college entrance examination, I was transferred to Zhengzhou University and majored in urban planning. After graduating from university in 2005, I wanted to work directly and help my family as soon as possible, but with the strong encouragement of my teacher, I applied for the graduate school of the Architectural Research Center of Peking University.
After graduating from Peking University, he returned to Zhengzhou University to teach and continue to explore the practice of gardening. In 2015, he completed his first garden and set up his own studio, Inyuan Workshop. I think back to myself, almost every building I've ever done, including the award-winning design competitions I won in college, has been related to nature.
Maybe it's because I was born and raised in the countryside and has a natural sensitivity to nature.
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When I returned to my hometown during the Spring Festival in 2016, my father wrote couplets, and Wang Baozhen and her eldest son helped together
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This summer, I took my youngest son back to my hometown, and in the brick cracks were sesame seeds planted by Wang Baozhen's mother
When I was 9 years old, my family built a house once, and that was a big event for our family. Starting from the preparation of the materials, the stones for the foundation, the bricks for the walls, and the tiles for the roof were all mined by my father and fired by himself.
After the materials were prepared, with the help of the villagers, the house was built brick by brick. I remember the whole process, sometimes helping my parents look at the construction site, and sometimes running around the construction site by myself.
When he went to the beam, his father wrote a red paper of "Jiang Taigong is here, the gods abdicate", pasted it on the beam, and then the firecrackers rang out, and the house was built with special humanity and sacredness. Moreover, the act of construction itself has become a way for villagers to communicate their feelings with each other.
Later, after I became a member of the construction industry, I gradually realized that this experience had a great impact on my participation in the construction and construction of my own garden.
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Above: Rong Yuan
Bottom: Twisty Garden
Photo: Wang Baozhen
I'm 42 years old this year, and when I don't have to be confused, I can say that I don't have to be confused about the direction of architectural exploration in the second half of my life, garden architecture. The garden and architecture are a whole, and in the final analysis, it explores the relationship between architecture and nature, and between man and nature.
In the past, most of my designs were gardens for private enjoyment. This time, the public can come in to experience, enjoy, and consume. Being able to integrate years of gardening exploration into a public building is something I value very much.
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Visitors in the park
Donglu Garden is one of the most important works of my current project. After the completion of Donglu Garden, I am more determined about the future of garden architecture. The concept of "garden architecture" was first proposed by my mentor Dong Yugan during my study at Peking University, and we should carry it forward.
I am now working on a small museum, and I would like to try more public buildings in the future, integrating the concept and layout of garden architecture into various functional types, shops, offices, and public services, so as to realize the poetic coexistence of man and nature.
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A corner of the East Foot Garden and Taihang Mountain
In the future, if every type of space can be connected to nature, how much will it benefit the current generation? Imagine that your workplace is a garden in itself, and "swimming" in the garden twice a day is equivalent to a very good slow-paced exercise, and you won't be too curly to have time to exercise.
If your life takes place in the garden, pruning, watering, sweeping the floor, sweating profusely, and exercising your body every day, you may not be so anxious.
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Wang Baozhen strolls in the East Foot Park
Nature has always nourished us, and this is rooted in our tradition of making. Just like Guo Xi of the Northern Song Dynasty said, the highest habitat realm is "feasible, hopeful, liveable, and travelable".
How to achieve a more beautiful relationship between man and nature is a fundamental question in architecture, and it is also worth thinking about all our architects. People's energy is limited, and I am already very happy to be able to do things in one direction in this life.
Part of the architectural photography: Sun Haiting, Gao Leilei, Wang Dan, Wang Baozhen
Some of the images are provided by Wang Baozhen