Boundaries, centres and peripheries tn Chinese gardens: A case of Suzhou in the eleventh century

Abstract An essential feature of gardens in traditional China was, in an etymological sense, the boundaries that marked them out from their surrounding areas.2 The artificial boundaries were physically nude possible by the employment of fences, ledges and, above all, walls. However, walls were, as they still are today, such a prominent and ubiquitous feature not only of China's gardens, but of its built environment at large that Jeffrey F. Meyer, when discussing the cosmological and religious aspects of the city of Beijing, has to proclaim: ‘#x201C;Wall” is what makes China’3 Indeed, the physical existence of social institutions of all kinds, from imperial court at the top of the social hierarchy, down to the local administrative centre, school, temple, village, private home and, of course, garden, was pre-determined by the building of enclosing walls. To interpret the raison d'être of walls in China in a sensible way, however, is more difficult than just to recognize their promninence and ubiquity.