Thousands of miles away from the Middle Kingdom, the Garden of Flowing Fragrance at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, helps visitors understand Chinese design. This is why this place works.
It’s safe to say that Americans visiting Flowing Fragrance know little about Chinese design. And that’s too bad, because how we relate to people from other countries is shaped by our positive experiences with their culture and the things created within its context.
The Chinese culture is generally collectivistic and the United State’s individualistic. These differing values influence design preferences and expectations. For instance, research shows that people from individualistic cultures are apt to prefer rectilinear forms, whereas those from collectivist ones are more positive about curvy shapes.
While the Garden of Flowing Fragrance provides primarily a visual experience, its design doesn’t slight the other senses. As its name suggests, plants here exude distinct, positive scents. A restaurant in the garden serves Chinese foods and teas; the textures underfoot and the sounds flowing water in the garden add to the cultural immersion. In addition, this multisensory approach is an important element of biophilic design.
The Garden of Flowing Fragrance at the Huntington is a place that works because its design makes it clear that cultures differ in how they choose to experience the physical world and because its designers didn’t forget that we are multi-sensory creatures.