Moon-floating Temple:Aesthetic Thinking Of Architecture And Environment

This paper focuses on the consideration of the Moon-floating Temple located in the Bai Tang River Wetland Park in Suining County,Jiangsu Province,and its environment for natural aesthetics,architectural aesthetics and environmental aesthetics.The Moon-floating Temple is the first unique "Non-palatial" modern Buddhist activity place in China.In 2015,the Moon-floating Temple was listed in "religious" most beautiful buildings for its unique design during the World Architecture Festival held in Singapore.The architectural form of Moon-floating Temple has realized the religious function perfectly with the modernized architectural form,which is characterized as “Get rid of the old form,the establishment of a new form,break free from the original Buddhist temple shackles,especially in the traditional form of Buddhist temple”.The feature of the architecture is designed with grille to highlight the beauty of simplicity with geometric lines,in addition,the classical pattern is in accordance with the traditional pattern of the Buddhist temple.At the same time,as a place for monk’s practice,the Buddha and the meditation,whose religious function has not been lost due to its simple form.On the contrary,the combination of the virtual and the real,as well as the complement of public and the privacy is well embodied depending on the understanding of the architectural form,the use of light,and the rational layout of the function of religious buildings by the design team.The architectural environment of the Moon-floating Temple highlights several important environmental aesthetic orientations.The first is the concept of "Combining design with nature".Water and moon all are important design elements in Moon-floating Temple.The elements of water and moon appear in the design of the main body of the building,even all the geographical environment of the main body of the building is closely connected with the water system of the Wetland Park,which made the Moon-floating Temple become a "floating" ’s temple;the concept of "Combining design with nature" is manifested in the main body of the building as "Cangfengdeshui"(“Cangfengdeshui” is an important concept of Chinese traditional culture).Therefore,the Moon-floating Temple became an ideal model of "combining design with nature".Secondly,the historical and cultural environment is also an important part of building environment.The Buddhist history of Suining county is profound,and the construction of the Moon-floating Temple is closely related to the Dizang temple and the Fotuo Temple;and the temple is the product of the "process" exhibiting the beauty of the culture at the food and the weeds.Therefore,it is the product of the collision of the local Buddhist belief and the modern architectural idea.Thirdly,the atmosphere created by the Moon-floating Temple and its surroundings makes the Moon-floating Temple possess a unique spirit of place.The "thousand rivers of water reflected thousand rivers of moons,there are no clouds,only skies" in the entrance area of the Moon-floating Temple;It shows that all beings are not high or low,all life has Buddha nature.With the trails of the middle axis marching,eight realm of nirvana is shown in the form of story boxes,they are:namely,without me,origin,impermanence,recurrent,introspection,meditation,insight,Nirvana;and the image of Water Moon Guanyin deepender the expression of Water Moon Dojo and Zen space.As a whole,architectural function of the Moon-floating Temple was embodied by the beauty of architecture,through the concretion of architectural form,the abstraction of nature,as well as the translation of the Zen concept.In addition,making the temple of Zen body in the water,this conception translation from the real existence of the architectures to the "empty" and "nothing" by its empty and fluidity,which convey the Rich Zen and showing the great beauty of heaven and earth.