Chinese Garden of Friendship


The Chinese Garden of Friendship is a heritage-listed Chinese garden at 1 Harbour Street, in the Sydney central business district, City of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Modelled after the classic private gardens of the Ming Dynasty, the garden offers an insight into Chinese heritage and culture. It was designed by Guangzhou Garden Planning & Building Design Institute, Tsang & Lee, and Edmond Bull & Corkery and built from 1986 to 1988 by Gutteridge Haskins & Davey; the Darling Harbour Authority; Imperial Gardens; Leightons; and Australian Native Landscapes. The gardens were added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 5 October 2018.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship was designed by Sydney's Chinese sister city, Guangzhou in China. Sydney's Chinatown complements the area's already rich in Chinese heritage and culture. The garden was officially opened 17 January 1988 as part of Sydney's Bicentennial Celebrations and named the Chinese Garden of Friendship symbolising the bond established between China and Australia.
The Garden is located at the corner of Day Street and Pier Street,, on the site of the former NSW Fresh Food and Ice Co, which is considered significant in the development of refrigeration and freezing in Sydney.

History

The Aboriginal name for Darling Harbour is Tumbalong.
Prior to colonisation the site was open water adjacent to a low lying swampy area. From about 1850 to 1984 the site was filled-in and used as industrial land.
The land that would become the Chinese Garden of Friendship is in Cockle Bay and was progressively reclaimed and industrialised from the early years of the 19th century. Industries included ship building and repairs around the edges of the water, while further inland predominant uses were engineering workshops, metal foundries and food milling factories.
The site was first developed as Mort's Fresh Food & Ice Company in the 1850s with internationally significant developments in refrigeration technology arising from this period. Late 19th century light industrial buildings on the site and in its vicinity were demolished in 1985 as part of the Bicentenary redevelopment of Darling Harbour. This site history is uncommon for overseas Chinese gardens, which are typically located in existing parklands. The exception is several gardens in Hong Kong that were built in the 1970s-80s on reclaimed waterside industrial land.
The Landscape Section of the NSW Public Works, Government Architect's Branch were directly involved in development and construction of the garden. Oi Choong, then Head of the Landscape Section, notes that along with the Mount Tomah Botanic Garden, the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan and Bicentennial Park, Homebush Bay, the Chinese Garden of Friendship is one of the few seminal landscapes built to celebrate Australia's bicentenary.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship was formally opened to the public in 1988 during the Bicentennial celebrations. It was the culmination of years of lobbying by Sydney's Chinese communities, and a complex design and construction process undertaken jointly by the Guangzhou Garden Planning & Design Institute and the Darling Harbour Authority.
Henry Tsang, a leading figure in Sydney's Chinese community, a member of Sydney City Council, and the New South Wales Legislative Council, had advocated the establishment of a Chinese garden in Sydney since the 1970s. At that time, overseas Chinese gardens were first established in Hong Kong and Singapore. In the early 1980s, the grounds of Sydney's two oldest Chinese temples were embellished with new boundary walls and pailou. At the same time, the local Chinese community in British Columbia had succeeded in having a Chinese garden established in Vancouver, which opened in 1982.
With the announcement in 1984 of the redevelopment of Darling Harbour to align with the upcoming 1988 bicentenary of colonisation, the local Chinese community lobbied the NSW government for a garden site in Darling Harbour. Tsang approached Neville Wran, the then Premier of New South Wales, to allocate an area of crown land for a traditional Chinese garden to celebrate the role of the Chinese community in developing Australia's commercial and social structures since the early 19th century. Tsang and the local Chinese community were able to secure from Wran a site adjacent to Chinatown in Haymarket, and helped facilitate an intergovernmental relationship between the Province of Guangdong and State of New South Wales to jointly fund, design and construct the new garden.
The relationship between Sydney and Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, is particularly strong because of trade and migration since the earliest days of colonisation. The agreement stipulated Guangdong would provide the design of the garden and key building materials, furniture and artworks that are intrinsic to the classic garden typology, while New South Wales would manage and fund its construction through the Darling Harbour Authority.
The garden design is a built and horticultural expression of a private garden, sometimes described as a scholar's or classical garden.
Garden typologies created over the last thousand years from the Song to the Qin dynasties demonstrate many historical, philosophical and regional variations. For instance, the cold climate Northern garden styles favour deciduous plant species and an urban character, while the warmer temperate climates of the Southern styles are marked by lusher sub-tropical plantings. Southern styles are sometimes called Cantonese, from their associations with Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan provinces and Hong Kong and Macau, or Lingnam, meaning "south of the mountains", referring to the region's location south of the Five Ranges of the Yangtze Valley. Generally, a private garden is a place of retreat and reflection, poetry, art, calligraphy and horticulture.
The Garden of Friendship design weaves the principles of auspicious positioning and orientation to channel positive qi energy through the garden; provides a preferred large and central water body to capture positive energy otherwise expressed as wealth and prosperity; demonstrates the placement of landforms to block unfavourable weather while opening the garden to the positive movement of the sun; places pavilions around the water body to reflect upon and disseminate the positive energy stored within the water body; and establishes key visual connections between the host and guest pavilions and landscape. A 2004 feng shui assessment of the garden considered it as a reflection of these design principles and as an embodiment of the five elemental relationships between water, earth, air, wood and steel.
There is considerable documentation of the challenges with building the garden, from the initial Cantonese concept drawings and their conversion into Australian-style construction drawings; sourcing local trades people with the skills to undertake very unusual construction methodologies; finding suitable local building materials; importing special materials from China such as artworks, furniture, tiles and feature rocks; and the politics of Chinese working on the site within the strict union rules and regulations of the time.
The garden was formally opened on 17 January 1988, at the commencement of the Bicentennial celebrations that strongly focused on Australia's achievements as a multi-cultural society with an official theme of "Living Together". It was first such garden in the southern hemisphere, the second in an English-language settler society after Vancouver, and among the earliest in the world.
This process of "translation", in which a Southern-style garden was recontextualised in the setting of the new Darling Harbour development, brought together a unique fusion of Cantonese and Sydneysider styles, materials, artisanship and horticultural practices. In the spirit of "translation", the garden's plantings have evolved greatly since that time. It was very raw when opened and being a new landscape was overplanted in the expectation that natural losses would occur. It has prospered, and over time plants have had to be removed to give others around them room to expand, and to preserve particular visual connections.
Like any living garden, the Garden of Friendship is continually changing, and these dynamic processes are actively managed to retain the original design spirit and integrity while allowing its evolution in response to climatic and social changes, and the natural life cycles of living plants.
Key elements within the townscape setting for the Garden of Friendship are Tumbalong Park and Tumbalong Boulevard. Tumbalong Park is a key link in the qi line from the garden to Cockle Bay, while the boulevard is the effective buffer between the garden and the very large International Convention Centre Sydney structures. The qi line has been marked since 2017 by a bronze strip across the stage in Tumbalong Park symbolically linking the garden with the parkland and the waters of Darling Harbour.
Launching The Chinese Garden of Friendship's 30th Anniversary in 2018, the initiative of Minister Victor Dominello with the Chinese Gardens Advisory Panel welcomed key community leaders and representatives to celebrate Chinese New Year during a magical auspicious evening that marks CNY in one of the city's key cultural places. 2018 will see the garden's planned development plans and community collaboration in building a prosperous future for the Gardens. The gardens held a festival to celebrate 30-year anniversary with events between 29 September to 14 October 2018.
On 4 October 2018 Dominello, as Minister for Services and Property, used an event celebrating the Garden's 30th anniversary as an opportunity to announce that Gabrielle Upton MP, Minister for Heritage had recently added the place on the State Heritage Register. The event was well attended by the Heritage Council with the Chair, Deputy Chair, Mark Dunn, Louise Cox, Bruce Pettman, and with Prof Richard Mackay amongst a strong Chinese community presence.

Description

The garden is a designed landscape largely enclosed by a masonry wall, covering in area. This area is composed of three main elements:
The site includes the forecourt entrance stairs, fire egress ramp, two imperial guardian lion statues and plantings of Chinese elms, all of which adjoin the garden wall outside the garden proper. Much of Cockle Bay comprises 19th century, introduced fill of unknown quality, provenance and changed ground levels. Following reclamation, this site had multiple industrial uses from the early 19th century on, with its final use being for warehousing. Industrial remnants are buried below the garden.
The various elements are described in turn below.
;The Garden Wall
The garden is enclosed by a white painted, rendered masonry wall on three sides. The wall is approximately in height and capped with scroll styled terracotta tiles. The western side is defined by a palisade fence transitioning to a mixed water and pavilion edge. The palisade fence is atypical but included so passing pedestrians can see into and be attracted to visit the garden. This "open" fence also has a very important role in the feng shui of the garden, allowing the qi energy to move from the garden towards Cockle Bay.
;Forecourt
The garden entrance is defined by stairs and podium with two imperial guardian lion statues protecting the entrance, one male and one female. The stairs and podium, while outside the walls, are part of the garden proper and of the quarantine fumigation process. Some ceramic trays and some specimen stones, are from Guangdong.
;Pavilions
There are 17 pavilions in the garden, some interconnected, others are free standing, constructed with components from both China and Australia, including:
;Water
The water bodies including the lake, pond and brooks, are constructed with a concrete base liner. The waterfall rockwork is sprayed concrete over a wire formwork, similar to the technique used in the artificial grottoes in the animal enclosures at Taronga Zoo, Mosman. Water is recycled, filtered and UV treated similarly to a public fountain system.
;Garden rock
All general landscape rock is water-weathered fossiliferous limestone from an ancient river bed, excavated from Cumnock Station, in Cabonne Shire, NSW Central West. In China, similarly water-worn rock was very highly prized in gardens, often coming from Lake Tai. This represents a local variation in material on a traditional pattern of use.
;Garden granite bridges
All stone bridges are granite from Guangdong, China.
;Featured rock sculptures
;The dragon wall
The Dragon Wall is a double sided, free-standing screen made of glazed terracotta from China, commissioned specifically for this garden and a gift from the government of Guangdong. The wall depicts a blue dragon representing New South Wales and a brown dragon representing Guangdong, both are in search of the pearl of wisdom. The wall design is based on the "nine dragon walls" in Datong, Shangxi. The wall was manufactured by Shiran Glazed Pottery in 943 pieces and assembled on site by potters from China.
;The main, or Mountain Gate
This gate was a gift from the government of Guangdong.
;Landscape paving
All paving including pebble mosaics are supplied and laid by New South Wales contractors. The mosaic patterns are both decorative and suggest a natural stone scree found along the edges of lakes and rivers.
;Pavilion artworks
All art including calligraphy, wall hangings and paintings are a gift from the government of Guangdong.
;Pavilion furniture
All traditional furniture pieces are a gift from Guangdong, while the recent addition of a display cabinet in the Water Pavilion was designed and built in New South Wales.
;Planting
All plants were sourced in New South Wales, including Australian and exotic species. There are two lychee trees that were planted by visiting governors of Guangdong province in 2009 and 2015. Lychee is one of the "four great fruits of Lingnan", along with banana, pineapple and paw paw.
;Penjing collection
Tenjing', or 'pun-gingE'l in Cantonese, roughly translates as "landscapes in a tray" or "tray scenery". It focuses on creating a miniature landscape of trees and rock, sometimes with added figurines and landscape elements such as bridges, pavilions and farm animals. The collection commenced in 1992 and is largely created in the Cantonese or Lingnan style of penjing, which is particular to Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. This style pays particular attention to matching the natural and artificial elements, such as plant and pot.
There are 17 individual examples in the collection, composed of 13 different species including two Port Jackson figs.
Ages of individual penjing, where known, range from 12 years to about 70 years. All have been cultivated and styled in Sydney by penjing artists. Two very old and well regarded penjing were sent from Guangdong as a gift in 1988, but they did not survive the quarantine fumigation process. Some of the ceramic trays, and some of the specimen stones, are from Guangdong. The penjing collection is owned by the Crown through Place Management NSW.

Condition

As at 6 June 2018, the condition of the gardens' fabric was good to excellent; and the archaeological potential was moderate to high. The integrity of the site was excellent. Overall, the garden is little changed since construction. The plantings have matured considerably since 1988 and have at times affected key visual connections between various elements. General maintenance and considered interventions are addressing these matters over time.

Modifications and dates

Prior to colonisation the site was open water adjacent to a low lying swampy area. From about 1850 to 1984 the site was in-filled and used as industrial land.

In popular culture

The garden was used as a scene for Dulcea's compound in 20th Century Fox's 1995 superhero film and also in the filming of The Wolverine in October 2012. Although many features of the gardens were changed or covered up as the movie was set in Japan - removal of all Chinese calligraphy and dragon motifs and a temporary pavilion built in the centre of the lake.

Heritage listing

As at 6 August 2018, The Chinese Garden of Friendship is state significant as an outstanding exemplar of a community-based late overseas Chinese garden of the type found in Australasia, North America and Europe constructed in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. It was the first Southern or Cantonese style garden in New South Wales developed cooperatively between Sydney's Chinese communities and public authorities in New South Wales and Guangdong.
The Garden demonstrates living traditions of over a thousand years in formal garden design and making in China and long continuities of particularly Southern, formal garden design and horticultural practices. It transcends boundaries between Cantonese cultural sensibilities within Sydney's urban context. Its penjing collection of miniature landscapes, cultivated in Sydney, diverse in their use of indigenous plant species such as the Port Jackson fig as well as species from China. The collection's cross-cultural significance is enhanced by geometric timber tracery screens and open-sided pavilions copied from historic Sydney models as a conscious expression of Chinoiserie. They provided a degree of popular familiarity and receptivity to Chinese gardens that hailed the construction of this garden.
The Garden is a unifying element tying the larger scale of the new Darling Harbour and older, more intimate spaces of Haymarket's streets and lanes. The continuing development of Sydney's Chinese communities are reflected in its Southern Chinese design and artisanship, in conjunction with Sydney and New South Wales' materials and construction. The Garden provides continuity to a landscape rooted in the ever-more sophisticated Haymarket Chinatown of which it is now a distinct quarter.
The Garden symbolises the welcoming of Australian-Chinese communities into New South Wales and Australian society. It represents the successful collaboration of Cantonese and Sydney designers, technicians and tradesmen and the transfer of traditional skills and techniques. It is a unique example of cross-cultural exchange in the construction of built and landscape forms that clearly demonstrate the rich heritage of Guangdong and Southern China translated into a new and unique garden enjoyed by the whole community.
Chinese Garden of Friendship was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 5 October 2018 having satisfied the following criteria.
The place is important in demonstrating the course, or pattern, of cultural or natural history in New South Wales.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship is historically significant at the State level for evidence of the human activity of making and maintaining gardens and landscape design. It continues over a thousand-years of formal garden design and making in China and some two hundred years of formal garden design and making in New South Wales. Its particular style shows blending of Southern or Cantonese design and elements from Guangdong with building and plant materials from New South Wales to produce a historically unique garden in Sydney.
The Garden is historically significant for associations with the symbolic public acceptance of Australian-Chinese communities as part of broader New South Wales and Australian communities during 1988 bicentennial celebrations, when multiculturalism and a theme of "Living Together" were strongly promoted.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship is historically significant for maintaining and showing continuing development of Sydney and broader Australian-Chinese communities. These have continued since the 1850s, creating and using a sequence of vernacular and designed structures and landscapes across the state reflecting Chinese and more particularly Cantonese, design and artisanship, local materials and construction practices. The Garden, as a product of desires of the local community, is evidence of this process of "translation" of a venerable historic institution, the formal garden, into a new physical and cultural environment and a desire for a public expression of culture and outreach.
The Garden expresses Cantonese cultural sensibilities in a Sydney context and blurs boundaries between them. It continues, through its dynamic nature and continuing maintenance, to be a manifestation of two centuries of cultural, social and economic exchange between New South Wales and Guangdong.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship is historically significant for demonstrating increasingly sophisticated development of distinctive Chinatowns in Sydney and especially Haymarket, which continues to thrive and grow while earlier examples, such as in The Rocks and Surry Hills, are now mainly historical, rather than living communities.
The Garden is also historically significant for its capacity to demonstrate urban renewal in Sydney as a world city. Its location in Darling Harbour, formerly a polluted industrial area, subsequent survival and development during later waves of renewal here, are evidence of historical importance in anchoring and providing continuity in periods of upheaval associated with urban renewal.
The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship is state-significant in representing the successful collaboration of Cantonese and Sydneysider architects, landscape architects, technicians and tradesmen in transferring traditional skills and techniques. Elements such as pavilions, bridges, rockwork, landscape art and furniture reflect Chinese architectural styles, some constructed by artisans from Guangzhou while others by locals trained using materials and techniques otherwise rare in Australia. The gardens represent a unique example of innovative and cross-cultural exchange.
The Garden is state-significant for creative or technical innovation or achievement, such as its penjing collection of miniature landscapes known in a limited number of overseas Chinese gardens, including Singapore, Seattle, Montreal, Portland and Huntington. These have been cultivated in Sydney and form a distinctive and highly creative element, especially their use of indigenous species such as Port Jackson fig. The collection has inspired development of other collections in New South Wales and establishment of a Penjing Academy.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship is significant for its aesthetic distinctiveness as the only example of a Southern style Chinese garden in New South Wales and Australia. Stylistic elements such as golden roof tiles, grey bricks, water bodies, granite bridges, natural rock sculptures, dragon wall and Mountain Gate exemplify the style, as do plantings such as lychees. There is no other landscape of comparable aesthetic distinctiveness in New South Wales.
The geometric timber tracery screens and the open-sided pavilions exemplify elements copied as a conscious expression of imaginary Chinese styles, known as Chinoiserie, intended for a Western audience. They exemplify the original forms of such a style and show capacity to respond to local climate in providing perforated screens and shading for outdoor rooms and verandahs.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship is state-significant for its landmark qualities as uniting the new larger scale of Sydney International Convention Exhibition and Entertainment Precinct structures and spaces in Darling Harbour and the older, more intimate scale of Haymarket's enclosing streets and lanes. Motorists travelling on the A4 motorway obtain glimpses of its pavilions through trees and over the wall, as do residents of apartment towers, views not available anywhere else. In distant views, the Garden forms a distinctive landmark of greenery and trees in a highly urban environment.
The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group in New South Wales for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship is state-significant for its special associations with Sydney's Chinese communities and broader Australian Chinese communities. The garden hosts community meetings, plays an important role in annual Chinese New Year celebrations, cultural activities such as traditional tea ceremonies, Chinese Opera and penjing display competitions.
The Garden is important to the community's sense of place because of its location in transitional space between the older Chinatown of Haymarket and urban renewal spaces of Darling Harbour. The Garden is increasingly regarded in Sydney's Chinese communities as a quarter of Chinatown, its "domain" or parkland that helps reinforce a strong sense of place and provides space for respite and reflection, celebration and community-building in an area of growing high-rise buildings and population.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship is significant for its importance to a community's sense of place, shown in records and event data that show some 230,000 visitors during 2016-17 and an annual average over 2012-2017 of 205,000. Visitors include school groups, school holiday programs, evening functions and wedding ceremonies, as well as filming and photography activities.
The place possesses uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship is rare on the state level as the only example in New South Wales of a Southern or Cantonese style garden, developed in co-operation between Sydney's local Chinese communities, relevant authorities in New South Wales and Guangdong. More recent Chinese gardens in New South Wales use different styles and have not been developed to the same extent or in a similar highly urban context. In a national and global context, this is an early example of a Chinese Garden outside China, following the Dr Sun Yat Sen Garden in Canada and the Bochun Garden in Germany by two years. At least 16 Chinese gardens were built globally outside China after Sydney's garden, and thus it is rare in NSW and also part of a small group globally.
The Garden is rare for its capacity to demonstrate designs and techniques of exceptional interest, especially transfer of knowledge and skills between Guangdong and New South Wales in construction of built and landscape forms demonstrating the rich built and horticultural heritage of Guangdong and Southern China.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship gives rare evidence of Sydney's Chinese communities and broader Australian-Chinese communities and the uncommon act of establishing and maintaining a Chinese garden as a public park, which expresses a particular Southern style as adapted and translated in New South Wales to form a place of unique importance to those, other Australian and all visiting communities.

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