A Research On The Space Of Chinese Buddhist Temple’s Landscape Around The West Lake

Hangzhou has been know as the Buddhist Country in Southeast through the Southern Song Dynasty.Many famous ancient temples still exist and attract tourists.So Hangzhou is very suitable for the study of Chinese Buddhist temple’s landscape. And the West Lake is the most suitable in Hangzhou.This paper is an empirical research on the space of Chinese Buddhist temple gardens around the West Lake.And the Research focuses on spatial elements and spatial structure.In this paper,spatial elements are divided into4categories:the natural landscapes,artificial landscapes.buildings and plants.The author surveys11Chinese Buddhist temple gardens around the West Lake and analyzed the elements of each category.Through this analysis, the author summarizes the current characteristics and effects of each element. In the study of spatial structure, the space of Chinese Buddhist temple gardens around the West Lake is divided into2parts:the leading space and the temple space.Based on the differences of level restriction factors,the leading space can be divided into3types:the type of gentle ramp, the type of steep slope and the square-type.The spatial structure of each type is analyzed in detail with a typical example. Through the analysis,the methods of spatial organization for each type are summarized.According to the layout of buildings,the temple space is decided into3types:the type of courtyard.the type of gallery yard and the scattered type.The author selects3representative temples from the three types and mapped the plans of each one. With the plans and other research data,the authors analyzes the spatial sequence and spatial configuration of the three representative temples qualitatively and quantitatively.In the study of spatial sequence, the author extracts node spaces of the three representative temples and summarizes the sequence of node spaces by field observation.The analysis charts of spatial passable interface and visual interface are drawn to analyze the overall extent of the spatial broadness in each temple.Based on the quantitative indicators of spatial scale.the author sums up6Kuang-ao types of the node spaces and generalizes the sequence of Kuang-ao type in the three temples. The study of spatial configuration is based on the theory of Space Syntax.The spatial elements are abstracted in the spatial boundary model diagrams of the passable layer (45cm) and the visible layer (160cm).The spatial configuration of each temple is analyzed by visibility graph analysis in UCL Depthmap.Through that,the effects of plant,pool and gallery on the spatial permeability are discussed.In addition,the relationship between spatial configuration and spatial behavior is also discussed by field observation.