Master of the Nets Garden

The Master of the Nets Garden is the smallest of Suzhou's four great classical gardens and is widely regarded as the most consummate expression of the Chinese garden designer's art of working in miniature. Located on the south side of Suzhou's old city, the garden was first laid out in the twelfth century during the Southern Song dynasty and took its present form in the eighteenth century, when a retired official named Song Zongyuan rebuilt and renamed it after the humble life of a fisherman, a classical trope about retreating from public life. In 1997 the garden was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as one of the four original properties of the Classical Gardens of Suzhou.

Although the entire property covers less than half a hectare, roughly one-sixth the size of the Humble Administrator's Garden, the Master of the Nets Garden is celebrated for its success at the Suzhou design principle of the small seeing the big. The layout is divided into three sections, with a small residential compound, a main garden centered on a single rectangular pond, and an inner study court. By carefully controlling sightlines, layering space through covered corridors, and using lattice windows to borrow views from adjoining courtyards, the designer creates the illusion of a much larger landscape.

The main garden is the centerpiece. A single pond, the Rosy Cloud Pool, occupies the center, surrounded by pavilions, halls, and artificial rockeries. The most famous structure is the Pavilion of Watching the Moon and Stopping the Wind, which projects over the water from the western edge, and the Dianchun Study, a tiny scholar's studio squeezed into a courtyard of just a few meters on a side that is often cited as the finest small-scale interior in any Suzhou garden. The rockeries on the eastern bank are arranged to suggest distant mountain ranges.

The Master of the Nets Garden is also the only Suzhou garden that runs a regular evening cultural program. From spring through autumn, the garden stays open after dark and presents a sequence of traditional performances, Pingtan, kunqu opera, classical instrumental music, and dance, staged in successive courtyards, with small groups of visitors guided from one to the next. For visitors who have already toured the major gardens by day, the night program is the best way to experience the Master of the Nets Garden; the small scale and controlled lighting turn the property into an intimate stage set, and the music floating out over the pond after dark is one of the signature aesthetic experiences of Suzhou.