The Chinese Garden: History, Art and Architecture

Maggie Keswick first went to China when she was four years old. Her family had lived and worked in China since the early nineteenth century, and it is perhaps because of this close link that she was able to develop so intimate an understanding of Chinese art, philosophy and garden-making. She was educated in Shanghai and Hong Kong and, in Britain, at Oxford University and the Architectural Association, London. She was married to the architectural critic and historian Charles Jencks, with whom she made the famous conceptual garden at Portrack, near Dumfries, Scotland Alison Hardie is a lecturer in Chinese studies at Newcastle University. She has done extensive research into Chinese gardens, specializing in Chinese garden design in the later Ming dynasty, and is translator of the classic Chinese garden text The Craft of Gardens (Yuan Ye) by Ji Cheng. She first met Maggie Keswick in China twenty years ago, and it was following Maggie's lead that she embarked on her study of Chinese gardensKeswick, Maggie is the author of 'The Chinese Garden: History, Art and Architecture', published 1986 under ISBN 9780312133832 and ISBN 0312133839.