Spring Dawn on the Su Causeway: The History and Landscape Culture of West Lake
Hangzhou’s West Lake captivates the imagination with its cultural wonders, mesmerizing scenery, renowned monasteries, and symbols of economic prosperity. Since the late Tang Dynasty (second half of the 9th century), the Lake progressively developed a landscape identity.
Poets extolled its splendor, and artists immortalized its panoramic views. Its shores saw the rise of gardens and Buddhist sanctuaries, positioning the Lake as one of the first landscape tourist destinations in world history.
Consequently, the Lake emerged as both a physically engineered marvel and a conceptualized natural area, appreciated through diverse cultural perspectives.
Until very recently, West Lake has received relatively little attention from scholars. However, a growing number of researchers are now investigating West Lake from different perspectives. This workshop brings together experts from multiple disciplines and different regionsthese to create a broad-based edited volume to showcase the complex cultural layers and long history of West Lake. This workshop explores West Lake not merely as a single cultural landscape, but as a case study to further promote landscape studies, the history of China in the world, and the crucial role of visual/material culture in Middle Period East Asia.
