Wanda Han Anyin

Han'an Yin in Neijiang, Sichuan, developed by Neijiang Wanda Cultural Tourism and designed by Chongqing Limo Landscape with contractors Sichuan Gengshen, Hangzhou Kelo and Nanjing Jinhong, pursues the refined elegance of Song-dynasty aesthetics - the era when Chinese architecture reached its perfect, mellow balance and daily life, as recorded in texts such as Dreaming of Glorious Past, made a cult of incense, tea, painting and flower arrangement. The project is organised around court, hall and garden, each holding the "elegant" spirit of Song life. The court is a nearly hundred-pace-wide street-facing front that conveys dignity, with a hotel-style drop-off and restrained flower pools set with a few stones and plants; a pool, three pines and five steps stage the expectation of what lies beyond. The hall is set back more than thirty metres from the road, its long blank wall punctuated only by a few landscape touches so that the whole garden opens on the lower ground floor as visitors step in. The garden is composed around a single complete pool at its centre, edged with natural banks, weeping trees, placed stones and paths that radiate outward in a closed loop, echoing the Chinese ideal of he - completeness, reunion and wholeness. A covered promenade on the north side allows quick passage, while the south side is shaped as rockery and woods for slow exploration; the two rhythms converge at a waterside pavilion. The 3-metre level difference between north and south is resolved partly through a wild, rock-screened exploration path and partly through a calm covered walkway, avoiding the boredom of an unobstructed view. Tree and stone selection was obsessive: a signature Chinese tallow was sought for days around Chengdu nurseries for its calligraphic trunk, the front court planting was reduced from six low-branched hackberries and two pines to three sculpted pines, and seventy-four feature stones were chosen and placed across the site with full mock-up control. The result is a modern dialogue with Song elegance - not a period set, but a quiet, deliberate way of living.