The Tea Gardens of Dazhangshan

The International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens 2019

30th edition

edited by Patrizia Boschiero, Luigi Latini, Maurizio Paolillo

Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche

Treviso 2019

244 pages, 156 illustrations in colour and 29 black and white

ISBN 978-88-8435-150-0

Italian edition: ISBN 978-88-8435-149-4

(series Memorie/dossier)

 

The thirtieth edition of the International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens is dedicated to The Tea Gardens of Dazhangshan, situated in Wuyuan county, in the northeast of Jiangxi province, in southeast China. A site capable of stimulating a reflection on both historic and contemporary rural landscapes, as well as the environmental and social emergencies currently affecting our planet. The vast system of hills beneath the mountains of Dazhangshan is surrounded by tea cultivations managed according to agroecological criteria: the undulating fields with their distinctive rows of tidy hedges unfold between the forests above and the rice paddies in the valleys below. The tea plant (Camellia sinensis), which originates in this corner of China, has shaped a contemporary landscape conveying a sense of history and projecting into the future the values of a rural environment where humans have established a harmonious relationship with nature.

The book, edited by Patrizia Boschiero, Luigi Latini and Maurizio Paolillo, is a collective work that brings together a dozen unpublished contributions, a rich photographic, cartographic and documentary apparatus, published in Italian and English.

 

Contents

The International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens, 1990-2019

Regulations and Scientific Committee

The Tea Gardens of Dazhangshan. Statement of the Carlo Scarpa Prize, in English, Chinese and Italian

Maurizio Paolillo, From China to Wuyuan County. A historical and geographical overview

Maurizio Paolillo, The Beauty of the Dao. The multiple faces of landscape in the cultural tradition of China

Hong Peng, Poetry and Craftsmanship, a Marriage of Nature and History. The gardening philosophy of Dazhangshan’s organic tea farms

Chen Xing, A Home for Tea, a Home for Books

Xiao Kunbing, Culture, Cultivations and Tea Routes in Ancient China. Historical and anthropological aspects

Yu Yue, Environment, Tea and Tea Culture in Jiangxi

Livio Zanini, Before the Arrival of Tea in Europe. The Chinese beverage in western sources prior to the 17th century

Giuseppe Barbera, Anthropocene, Agriculture, and Landscape. Reflections on the margins of a journey in China

Anna-Paola Pola, “The Most Beautiful Village in China.” Heritage, politics, and transformations in rural China

Mónica Luengo, Cultural and Heritage Values of the Asian Tea Landscapes in an International Framework

Hervé Brunon, Maxime Decaudin, For an Ecological History. Reflections inspired by China

Massimo Rossi, Some Reflections on Cartographic Representation in the Chinese Culture

Bibliography

Illustration References

List of Authors

The International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens 2019