Des Register.com, IA
06-30-06
New Chinese garden project 'fit for kings'
Chinese and American technicians have created the only Chinese imperial-style
gardens in the U.S.
By JEFFREY PATCH
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Master technicians from China helped their American counterparts raise a
wooden pavilion on a signature riverfront landmark Thursday in Des Moines.
The components for the Chinese structure were crafted and assembled in Beijing
and shipped to Iowa for the Robert D. Ray Asian Gardens.
"Everyone says, 'Why are you doing this in Iowa?' " said Paul Shao, the
president of the Chinese Cultural Center of America. "I say, 'Why not Iowa?' I
wanted to build something fit for emperors and kings."
Shao, an architecture professor at Iowa State University, said the garden is
the only Chinese imperial-style structure in the United States.
The wooden structure was built with interlocking notches rather than nails or
adhesive.
The project is due Sept. 23 - a few days before Ray's 78th birthday on Sept. 26 but Shao said the garden will be ever-evolving.
"You can't complete it in a few months," he said. "It has to grow and mature."
The structure was built inside a levee on the Des Moines River with the skyline
and Wells Fargo Arena in the background.
"People can experience China in real space and real time," Shao said. "Through
this experience, people can contemplate the brotherhood and sisterhood of
humankind and become one with nature."
As Iowa governor, Ray welcomed refugees from Southeast Asia in the 1970s.
"It's a one-of-a-kind monument to celebrate Iowa's openness to diversity," Shao
said.
Ray also established a sister-state partnership between Iowa and Hebei province
in China and was one of the first governors to visit China after President Nixon's
landmark visit in 1972.
Three master technicians from the Landscape Architecture Corporation of China,
a state-owned entity, are in Des Moines for a month to supervise construction of
the facility.
It took Liu Jie, the project manager, Zhang Yanbao, the timber specialist, and Lu
Jianguo, the tile specialist, 20 years to earn the master technician title.
"These are things they don't put down on paper," Shao said. "They learn from
generation to generation to generation."
Liu said Chinese architecture is vastly different from American.
"Our structures are in the traditional Chinese way," he said. "It's mainly made of
timber components. Chinese craftsman have to be engaged to carry out these
buildings."
The projects final cost is estimated at $1.3 million.
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