Hue Garden House - Humanistic Residential Space - Final Episode

People say: “Because the population is sparse, Hue has a lot of land to build garden houses”. Some people also object: “As the capital of a country, where the nation’s human resources have gathered for nearly two centuries, how can you say that the population is sparse. Hue has many garden houses because that is the lifestyle of Hue people”.

I think a little differently. It is the natural conditions that have influenced the temperament and senses of Hue people, forming the garden houses in the capital. For the people of the Red River Delta, living in a delta environment, with a small land area and a large population, their natural perception is almost closely linked to the low-lying fields, so the garden, if it exists in their mind, must be a profitable garden, with a fish pond, a barn, a vegetable garden and several kinds of fruit trees to ensure the self-sufficiency of the family. Just like the image in Nguyen Khuyen's poem:“Deep pond with big water, hard to fish. Large garden with loose fence, hard to chase chickens.”Meanwhile, the Southern people live in fertile fields with storks flying straight, so in their minds there is no image of bamboo hedges or rows of tea to define gardens or garden houses, concepts that always contain spatial limitations (!). For the Southern people, there is only a vast garden with fruit trees, not a garden with shelter and protection as the word itself implies.Pill(園) in Chinese characters, with the radicalVi(囗) surrounding.

The ancient Hue region was Thuan Hoa, a place called “O Chau ac dia”, a fierce land, with sacred forests and poisonous waters, where the feudal dynasties of Dai Viet exiled criminals. During the journey to the South, Thanh - Nghe immigrants who came to settle in Thuan Hoa had to confront that harsh nature. They had to fight with ferocious animals, with strange customs and unfavorable weather. In addition, due to the “fence” nature of Thuan Hoa with respect to the national territory, the Vietnamese immigrants here had to constantly deal with the harassment of bandits, especially with the Cham warriors who never accepted the fact that Chau O and Chau Ly of the ancient Champa kingdom were now the southern territories of neighboring Dai Viet.

Living in such an antagonistic environment, Hue people chose to build gardens as a way to defend themselves. With gardens, they felt their residence was safer, because the gardens pushed the wild space of the mountains and forests away from their homes. The more gardens there were, the larger the distance between humans and wild animals, and the wild and unpredictable nature. The gardens of Thuan Hoa residents at that time had the task of defense, creating a minimum safe space for their owners against the threats of nature, wild animals and enemies. That is why Hue today has many gardens, and they are large gardens. That is the characteristic that makes Hue garden houses different from garden houses in other places.

Hue people live in a land: looking up you see majestic mountains, looking down you see the vast ocean, in the South there are winding green rivers, in the North there are endless sand dunes. Nature spreads before the eyes of Hue people with mountains, hills, rivers, streams, lagoons, and oceans. Hue land is not the kind of fertile land to produce fruit trees bearing enough fruit to feed people. Hue sky"when it's sunny, mud turns to stone, when it rains, stone turns to mud"(Phung Quan's poem), so the crops could not be prosperous. Living in such a natural setting and climate, Hue people had no intention of growing gardens for profit.

The garden is just a place to play, a place to express the perception of the universe of Hue people. The noble and educated people apply feng shui to the terrain of Hue's mountains, streams, sandbanks, and beaches to create beautiful natural scenes for themselves to enjoy. Other classes try to find for themselves a quiet, peaceful space to have a place to relax and contemplate life. The poor, who do not have enough land to grow a garden, also try to have a hanging garden under their roof, as a way to express harmony with nature.

Researcher Lieu Thuong Van commented:“Initially, gardens were a sign of human habitation, connecting with other units. Gardens connected, bringing roofs to fill the empty space of the reclaimed land. Therefore, gardens are bridges of human relationships, not “gaps” between intimacy, as a garden today often expresses. This unique feature, other than Hue gardens, is difficult to find anywhere else that history has bestowed that strange ‘cultural character’. Hue gardens are places that contain intimacy with each other, with the people around them.”. (Lieu Thuong Van, "Hue Garden",Perfume River, No. 6/1998, p. 71).

From the original “defensive” gardens, Hue people have gradually transformed that living space into “cultural gardens”. In particular, the combination of Hue gardens with traditional houses, a typical type of folk residential architecture in Central Vietnam, has created a unique and distinct type of cultural heritage:Hue garden house. In addition, the birth and existence of the Nguyen Dynasty in Hue for nearly a century and a half created the premise for the formation of Hue garden house architecture style. Not counting the royal gardens in the Imperial City, the Capital and the mausoleums of the emperors, the palaces and residences of the aristocracy and mandarins of the Nguyen Dynasty in the Citadel, An Cuu, Vi Da, Kim Long, Nguyet Bieu, Phu Cat, Phu Hoi... gave Hue the title:garden city.

Today, although the appearance of the garden city has changed, there are still famous garden houses that fully embody the spirit and characteristics of Hue garden houses, faithfully reflecting the character and lifestyle of Hue people. In the middle of bustling streets, among tube-shaped houses that try to wear a flashy, modern shell close together, people still come across garden houses with arched gates and a pair of Chinese parallel sentences made of ceramic, with an ancient plaster screen as if trying to shield the quiet house inside from the hustle and bustle of the streets outside.

In that ancient garden and old roof, Hue culture is preserved with all its good values ​​and its alarming conservatism. The humanity of Hue culture and the sophistication of Hue lifestyle permeate every room of the house, every carving on the rafters, the three-part panels, the tree roots, the garden corners. Hue people seem to try to combine all their feelings about feng shui, history, culture, gratitude to ancestors and nature, kindness to fellow human beings, and the inexplicable adherence to order in building a garden house. They create screens and winding paths to avoid invisible evils and visible abruptness as well as to keep the house respectful. They create lakes (or shallow pools) with rockery in front of the house to maintain feng shui balance and ward off evil. They create solemn worship spaces in the house to express gratitude to Heaven, Buddha, and ancestors. They divided the house into separate spaces to maintain family order, and taught their children according to the doctrines that many “modern people” considered old-fashioned. They decorated the house, carved or painted it where necessary to turn the residence into a work of art and to show off their education and aesthetics. They chose suitable trees, planted them in layers from the outside in and used them for certain purposes: some to smell the scent, some to enjoy the fruit, some to admire the flowers, and some just to provide shade for pedestrians wandering in the hot summer afternoon of Hue. And when someone in the house passed away, they hung mourning scarves on the trees as if they were blood relatives of the family.

Hue garden houses are places that contain such sacred things. Perhaps that is why Hue garden houses have a special place in Hue culture and become one of the symbols of the land of Perfume River and Ngu Mountain.

Article and photos:Tran Duc Anh Son

The Thanh