Suzhou(479 views)

Release date:2010-02-22 09:56:07

Suzhou is one of the oldest cities in China, with a history that stretches back to 2,500 years ago. Ancient Suzhou was a cultural and fashion leader, and was hailed as one of the most beautiful places in the Middle Kingdom and had once been home to the political and cultural elite.

Today, Suzhou’s repute as a beautiful city as endured, and it remains one of the most popular tourist destinations in China. Many of the ornamental gardens and exquisitely extravagant residences that had been built by the Chinese elite are still standing, and remain remarkably well-preserved. Many of the ornate classical gardens date back to the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). The old town reached its present dimensions in the 12th century and remnants of the old city wall (some recreated) can still be seen.

Suzhou was famously called “Venice of the East” by Marco Polo, and today, the network of canals and pretty stone bridges are still evident. Instead of taking a taxi from one ornamental garden to another, getting onto a sightseeing boat adds more to the experience.

The famous Suzhou gardens are meant by their creators to contain all the elements of the universe in miniature, and encompass the principles of Taoism. Not a single pebble or plant is left to nature. At one time, there were more than 200 gardens big and small around the city, now there are close to 70 that are well-preserved.

Admittedly, weekends are not the best times to appreciate the calm and exquisiteness of the gardens as they can get extremely crowded – necessitating queues to enter rooms and cross bridges. The most popular garden is the petite Garden of the Master of Nets, which hosts traditional dance and music performances at night.

Two of the gardens that have been listed as UNESCO heritage sites, are the Garden of the Humble Administrator and the Lion Forest Garden. The Garden of the Humble Administrator was built by a retired Ming dynasty official around 1513. The most outstanding features of this garden are the inter-connected islets covered with bamboo, and the lakeside pavilions. Just nearby on the same street, the Lion Grove Garden was built by a Buddhist monk in 1342, and gets its name from its labyrinthine limestone rockery, arranged in the likeness of lions playing, roaring, fighting, and sleeping. Both these gardens are next to the stunning Suzhou Museum.

While the ornamental gardens are the biggest tourist attractions in Suzhou, the ancient city also has an avant garde landmark designed by I M Pei, one of the most acclaimed and prolific architects of our time. Pei, of the attention-grabbing buildings such as the glass pyramid at the Lourve in Paris, spent summers in his youth visiting with his family in Suzhou, his ancestral hometown.


The original Suzhou Museum was established in 1960 and was located within the premises of Prince Zhong’s Residence, a historical site. The new museum, sprawling over 10,700 sqm, was opened in October 2005. From the streets, the whitewashed walls with grey edges seem fairly prosaic, just as you would expect of a modern building that was built to blend with its much older and historical neighbours. But on closer inspection, wondrous details emerge.

A view of mountain peaks greets visitors entering the building – a visual effect created by placing thin rocks in different shades against a whitewashed wall. At first glance, windows and doorways appear nothing more than austere geometric shapes, but from the other side, each one hems in an object or a scene just so, producing the effect of framed pictures.

I M Pei has included all the familiar classical Suzhou architectural motifs – including a courtyard with stone bridges, pavilions, a ponds, and rock displays, as well as the grey and white colour scheme – but the result is thoroughly modern. His signature use of geometric shapes, glass, and light, can be seen throughout the museum, which houses almost 30,000 cultural relics.

The permanent exhibits include paintings, calligraphy, and artifacts from the region; dating from the Song to Qing dynasties. Suzhou was once the cultural leader of China during the Ming (19th century) and Qing dynasties, and there are numerous displays of the objects that feature in the lifestyle of elite scholars of the era.

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