Astor Court
Encyclopedia
The Astor Court, located in The Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York City
New York
, United States
, is a re-creation of a Ming Dynasty
-style, Chinese-garden
courtyard
.
The first permanent cultural exchange between the U.S. and the People's Republic of China
,
the installation was completed in 1981. Conceived by museum trustee
Brooke Astor
, the courtyard was created and assembled by expert craftsmen from China using traditional methods, materials and hand tools.
, China
, called Wang Shi Yuan, the Garden of the Master of the Fishing Nets
."
Statements by officials of the museum credit Astor with the idea for the installation, stating that she recalled such gardens from a period of her childhood spent in Beijing
, China, "and thought that such a court would be ideal as the focal point for the permanent installation of Far Eastern art." The museum had purchased a collection of Ming Dynasty domestic furniture in 1976 with funds in part from the Vincent Astor
Foundation. The hall adjacent to the courtyard and architecturally unified with it was created to provide a suitable space to display this collection.
In 1977, Wen Fong, Special Consultant for Far East Affairs at the Metropolitan Museum and a professor at Princeton University
in Princeton
, New Jersey
, went to China and visited gardens in Suzhou with Professor Chen Congzhou, an architectural historian from Tongji University
in Shanghai
, China. It was their decision that the Late Spring Studio courtyard, a small part of the Garden of the Master of the Nets, should provide the basis of the museum's installation, for several reasons. The measurements of the small court were appropriate to the area the museum had in mind. Furthermore, its basic plan seemed to be relatively unchanged from its original construction as suggested by its "utter simplicity and harmonious proportions". Artist and stage designer
Ming Cho Lee
, working from various architectural sketches and photographs, created drawings and a model for the Astor Court which was shared with the Suzhou Garden Administration. Suzhou officials responded positively and offered a number of modifications, and offered photographs of Taihu rocks they proposed be part of the design, and by the end of 1978 an agreement was signed for the project.
In China, construction began on a permanent prototype
to remain in Suzhou. China granted special permission to log
nan trees for the wooden pillar
s that are central to the architecture. Nan, which is related to cedar
, was driven close to extinction during the Qing Dynasty
, and is only used in exceptional constructions such as the Memorial Hall of Mao Zedong
. Another critical element of the construction of a Chinese court is tile
, and to meet the requirement of the project an old imperial kiln was reopened. Each ceiling and floor tile was made by hand — or rather by foot, as the clay was pressed into frames by the workers' feet. The wood and ceramic
materials and elements were crafted in China and shipped to New York City, where assembly began in January 1980.
— a national trade union center
— and the multinational crew which carried out the work wore hardhats emblazoned with both Chinese and American flags. The American contribution was limited to preparing the modern infrastructure of ducts and circuitry, staining the wood, plastering, and painting; all other work was performed by a team of twenty-seven from the Suzchou Garden Administration.
The workers included carpenters, tile workers, masons, and rock experts. Most of the fabrication had been done in China and the pieces were numbered for assembly. The wood structures rely on mortise-and-tenon and mitering techniques of joinery as old as the fourth century BC, and of uncommon sophistication; one pillar is joined to over fifteen architectural members without nails, and secured with wood pins with just a firm tap of a mallet for added stability. It sits on a stone plinth without additional anchor. Fundamentally similar woodworking methods are used for furniture and traditional buildings, terms for which translate essentially as "small woodwork" and "large woodwork". The prepared joinery pieces were quickly assembled. "The entire frame of pillars and beams for the Ming Room, for instance, went up in several days, and with amazing precision. The woodworkers, using a frame handsaw and bow hand drill, were more like cabinetmakers than carpenters."
Stone and masonry work took longer. The grey terra-cotta floor tiles, which are laid on edge in groups of four (a pattern called jian fang) on a bed of packed sand, and held with a hand-mixed mastic of ground lime, bamboo, and tung oil. Hand saws were used in shaping tiles around pillars. The colonnade is edged by a low railing of hand-polished terra-cotta tiles.
The work of dressing, finishing, and assembling, was completed in less than five months. The Astor Court opened in June 1980.
The Courtyard floor of grey tiles is punctuated with Taihu rocks, plantings, and a small water feature intended to evoke the spring of the original. Across the courtyard, accessed from the middle of the colonnade down a step framed by two stone pillars from an old garden, is a half-pavilion, with carved wood benches and upturned eaves. The colonnade ends at the "moon-viewing terrace" in front of the Ming Hall with its period Ming Dynasty furniture.
These three elements—winding walkway, open pavilion, and a hall or room—are typical features of Chinese garden designs.
The entire space is covered by a pyramidal skylight designed by the consulting architects Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, using materials consistent with the museum's glass-curtain-wall extensions since the 1970s.
Details in the architectural elements can be easily missed, but amplify the Chinese sensibility that informs the design. For example, the court has several examples of Chinese wordplay. The colonnade jogs around a taihu rock called a "bamboo shoot" for its tall, narrow shape. This is a "visual pun on the surrounding live bamboo." The roof tiles, whose soft black tone is the result of firing with rice husks followed by a water bath while still warm, are fronted with stylized characters for "bat" (fu) which sounds like a word meaning happiness or good fortune, along with lu meaning weath and shou meaning long life—the three happinesses of an authentic Ming design.
The eaves of the half-pavilion are in the Suzhou style of radically upturned eaves, constructed in the style which has been translated as "spear boosted by a secondary spear" which is sometimes said to evoke a phoenix about to ascend. This is a style of northern China which allows more sun to be admitted to the interior than the deep overhangs more favored in the south.
The court includes elaborate compositions of rocks. One large rock, part of a configuration salvaged from an abandoned garden near Tiger Hill at the edge of Suzhou, resembles a famous one in the Lion Grove Garden
in Suzou, and illustrates an important quality of rock aesthetic, that the base should be narrower than the peak. Another tall rock, the ling-long peak, illustrates the much-prized "bony" and perforated quality of taihu rocks, which suggest lightness in spite of their massive weight. Such rocks have many-faceted meanings in Chinese culture. Viewers are thought to be able to imagine themselves travelling a mental journey through the miniature landscape that the rocks evoke.
The museum commissioned filmmaker Gene Searchinger and staff communications specialist Thomas Newman to record the process of installation, and their award-winning documentary, Ming Garden, written and partially narrated by museum curator Alfreda Murck, suggests the human dimension of what was a geopolitical watershed moment. The American foreman, Joseph DiGiacomo, is prominently quoted in the film, discussing "the mutual respect that developed between the American and Chinese workers. The interactions between the Chinese and American crews are more than merely amusing sidelights: they reveal how regard for craftsmanship helps to hurdle barriers of language and culture."
Most of the crews, some of whom were in their 70s, had never traveled far from Suzhou and none except one translator spoke English. Asked by a reporter if there had been any ideological debates between the U.S. and Chinese workers, the American foreman replied, "How could there be? As it is, it takes us an hour to understand what they are asking us to do. But what old-time work; it really impresses you."
The Chinese assigned a chef to the team, who prepared the workers' meals of Suzhou "home cooking" to keep them from homesickness.
's book, Chronic City
(2009), the protagonist
meets another character in the Astor Court, and, separately, another character mentions having shared a kiss there.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, is a re-creation of a Ming Dynasty
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
-style, Chinese-garden
Chinese garden
The Chinese garden, also known as a Chinese classical garden, is a style of landscape garden which has evolved for more than three thousand years, and which is inspired by Chinese literature, Chinese painting and Chinese philosophy...
courtyard
Courtyard
A court or courtyard is an enclosed area, often a space enclosed by a building that is open to the sky. These areas in inns and public buildings were often the primary meeting places for some purposes, leading to the other meanings of court....
.
The first permanent cultural exchange between the U.S. and the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
,
the installation was completed in 1981. Conceived by museum trustee
Trustee
Trustee is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, can refer to any person who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the benefit of another...
Brooke Astor
Brooke Astor
Roberta Brooke Astor was an American philanthropist and socialite who was the chairwoman of the Vincent Astor Foundation, which had been established by her third husband, Vincent Astor, son of John Jacob Astor IV and great-great grandson of America's first multi-millionaire, John Jacob...
, the courtyard was created and assembled by expert craftsmen from China using traditional methods, materials and hand tools.
Origins of the Astor Court
The design of the museum's Chinese garden is "based on a small courtyard within a scholar's garden in the city of SuzhouSuzhou
Suzhou , previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, called Wang Shi Yuan, the Garden of the Master of the Fishing Nets
Master of the Nets Garden
The Master of the Nets Garden in Suzhou is among the finest gardens in China. It is located at Canglang District, Dai Cheng Qiao Road, No. 11 Kuo Jia Tou Xiang . It is recognized with other classical Suzhou gardens as a UNESCO World Heritage Site...
."
Statements by officials of the museum credit Astor with the idea for the installation, stating that she recalled such gardens from a period of her childhood spent in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, China, "and thought that such a court would be ideal as the focal point for the permanent installation of Far Eastern art." The museum had purchased a collection of Ming Dynasty domestic furniture in 1976 with funds in part from the Vincent Astor
Vincent Astor
William Vincent Astor was a businessman and philanthropist and a member of the prominent Astor family.-Early life:...
Foundation. The hall adjacent to the courtyard and architecturally unified with it was created to provide a suitable space to display this collection.
In 1977, Wen Fong, Special Consultant for Far East Affairs at the Metropolitan Museum and a professor at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
in Princeton
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, went to China and visited gardens in Suzhou with Professor Chen Congzhou, an architectural historian from Tongji University
Tongji University
Tongji University , colloquially known as Tongji , located in Shanghai, has more than 30,000 students and 8,000 staff members . It offers degree programs at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels...
in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, China. It was their decision that the Late Spring Studio courtyard, a small part of the Garden of the Master of the Nets, should provide the basis of the museum's installation, for several reasons. The measurements of the small court were appropriate to the area the museum had in mind. Furthermore, its basic plan seemed to be relatively unchanged from its original construction as suggested by its "utter simplicity and harmonious proportions". Artist and stage designer
Scenic design
Scenic design is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers have traditionally come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but nowadays, generally speaking, they are trained professionals, often with M.F.A...
Ming Cho Lee
Ming Cho Lee
Ming Cho Lee is a Chinese-born American theatrical set designer and a longtime professor at the Yale School of Drama....
, working from various architectural sketches and photographs, created drawings and a model for the Astor Court which was shared with the Suzhou Garden Administration. Suzhou officials responded positively and offered a number of modifications, and offered photographs of Taihu rocks they proposed be part of the design, and by the end of 1978 an agreement was signed for the project.
In China, construction began on a permanent prototype
Prototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
to remain in Suzhou. China granted special permission to log
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
nan trees for the wooden pillar
Column
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a vertical structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. For the purpose of wind or earthquake engineering, columns may be designed to resist lateral forces...
s that are central to the architecture. Nan, which is related to cedar
Cedar wood
Cedar wood comes from several different trees that grow in different parts of the world, and may have different uses.* California incense-cedar, from Calocedrus decurrens, is the primary type of wood used for making pencils...
, was driven close to extinction during the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
, and is only used in exceptional constructions such as the Memorial Hall of Mao Zedong
Mausoleum of Mao Zedong
The Chairman Mao Memorial Hall , commonly known as the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, or the Mao Mausoleum, is the final resting place of Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China from 1943 and the chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China from 1945...
. Another critical element of the construction of a Chinese court is tile
Tile
A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops...
, and to meet the requirement of the project an old imperial kiln was reopened. Each ceiling and floor tile was made by hand — or rather by foot, as the clay was pressed into frames by the workers' feet. The wood and ceramic
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
materials and elements were crafted in China and shipped to New York City, where assembly began in January 1980.
Installing the Astor Court
The process of assembly required special arrangements with the AFL-CIOAFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
— a national trade union center
National trade union center
A national trade union center is a federation or confederation of trade unions in a single country. Nearly every country in the world has a national trade union center, and many have more than one. When there is more than one national center, it is often because of ideological differences—in some...
— and the multinational crew which carried out the work wore hardhats emblazoned with both Chinese and American flags. The American contribution was limited to preparing the modern infrastructure of ducts and circuitry, staining the wood, plastering, and painting; all other work was performed by a team of twenty-seven from the Suzchou Garden Administration.
The workers included carpenters, tile workers, masons, and rock experts. Most of the fabrication had been done in China and the pieces were numbered for assembly. The wood structures rely on mortise-and-tenon and mitering techniques of joinery as old as the fourth century BC, and of uncommon sophistication; one pillar is joined to over fifteen architectural members without nails, and secured with wood pins with just a firm tap of a mallet for added stability. It sits on a stone plinth without additional anchor. Fundamentally similar woodworking methods are used for furniture and traditional buildings, terms for which translate essentially as "small woodwork" and "large woodwork". The prepared joinery pieces were quickly assembled. "The entire frame of pillars and beams for the Ming Room, for instance, went up in several days, and with amazing precision. The woodworkers, using a frame handsaw and bow hand drill, were more like cabinetmakers than carpenters."
Stone and masonry work took longer. The grey terra-cotta floor tiles, which are laid on edge in groups of four (a pattern called jian fang) on a bed of packed sand, and held with a hand-mixed mastic of ground lime, bamboo, and tung oil. Hand saws were used in shaping tiles around pillars. The colonnade is edged by a low railing of hand-polished terra-cotta tiles.
The work of dressing, finishing, and assembling, was completed in less than five months. The Astor Court opened in June 1980.
Features of the Astor Court
The Astor Court's primary egress is through a circular "moon gate" which leads, as in the original Late Spring Studio courtyard, to a covered zigzag walkway running along a wall. The walls have backlighted windows which are elaborately latticed with designs from a 1634 garden manual; they frame bamboo plantings that offer a suggestion of space extending beyond. The Astor Court follows "a simple plan in keeping with the Yin-Yang principle of alternation. Similar elements, such as plaster walls, wood structures, or rocks, do not face each other. Viewed from outside the entrance at the south end, a circular moon gate frames a rectangular doorway, through which successive spaces defined by colonnades and an alternating pattern of light and dark may be seen."The Courtyard floor of grey tiles is punctuated with Taihu rocks, plantings, and a small water feature intended to evoke the spring of the original. Across the courtyard, accessed from the middle of the colonnade down a step framed by two stone pillars from an old garden, is a half-pavilion, with carved wood benches and upturned eaves. The colonnade ends at the "moon-viewing terrace" in front of the Ming Hall with its period Ming Dynasty furniture.
These three elements—winding walkway, open pavilion, and a hall or room—are typical features of Chinese garden designs.
The entire space is covered by a pyramidal skylight designed by the consulting architects Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, using materials consistent with the museum's glass-curtain-wall extensions since the 1970s.
Details in the architectural elements can be easily missed, but amplify the Chinese sensibility that informs the design. For example, the court has several examples of Chinese wordplay. The colonnade jogs around a taihu rock called a "bamboo shoot" for its tall, narrow shape. This is a "visual pun on the surrounding live bamboo." The roof tiles, whose soft black tone is the result of firing with rice husks followed by a water bath while still warm, are fronted with stylized characters for "bat" (fu) which sounds like a word meaning happiness or good fortune, along with lu meaning weath and shou meaning long life—the three happinesses of an authentic Ming design.
The eaves of the half-pavilion are in the Suzhou style of radically upturned eaves, constructed in the style which has been translated as "spear boosted by a secondary spear" which is sometimes said to evoke a phoenix about to ascend. This is a style of northern China which allows more sun to be admitted to the interior than the deep overhangs more favored in the south.
The court includes elaborate compositions of rocks. One large rock, part of a configuration salvaged from an abandoned garden near Tiger Hill at the edge of Suzhou, resembles a famous one in the Lion Grove Garden
Lion Grove Garden
The Lion Grove Garden located at 23 Yuanlin Road Suzhou City, of Jiangsu Province of China is famous for the large and labyrinthine grotto of taihu rock at the garden's center. The name of the garden derives from the shape of these rocks which are said to resemble lions...
in Suzou, and illustrates an important quality of rock aesthetic, that the base should be narrower than the peak. Another tall rock, the ling-long peak, illustrates the much-prized "bony" and perforated quality of taihu rocks, which suggest lightness in spite of their massive weight. Such rocks have many-faceted meanings in Chinese culture. Viewers are thought to be able to imagine themselves travelling a mental journey through the miniature landscape that the rocks evoke.
Chinese crews in New York
At the time of the installation in 1980, not long after the improvement of relations between the U.S. and China, the artisans and workers from the People's Republic of China attracted popular attention in New York.The museum commissioned filmmaker Gene Searchinger and staff communications specialist Thomas Newman to record the process of installation, and their award-winning documentary, Ming Garden, written and partially narrated by museum curator Alfreda Murck, suggests the human dimension of what was a geopolitical watershed moment. The American foreman, Joseph DiGiacomo, is prominently quoted in the film, discussing "the mutual respect that developed between the American and Chinese workers. The interactions between the Chinese and American crews are more than merely amusing sidelights: they reveal how regard for craftsmanship helps to hurdle barriers of language and culture."
Most of the crews, some of whom were in their 70s, had never traveled far from Suzhou and none except one translator spoke English. Asked by a reporter if there had been any ideological debates between the U.S. and Chinese workers, the American foreman replied, "How could there be? As it is, it takes us an hour to understand what they are asking us to do. But what old-time work; it really impresses you."
The Chinese assigned a chef to the team, who prepared the workers' meals of Suzhou "home cooking" to keep them from homesickness.
Astor Court in popular culture
In Jonathan LethemJonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels...
's book, Chronic City
Chronic City
-Summary:Lethem began work on Chronic City in early 2007, and has said that the novel is "set on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, it’s strongly influenced by Saul Bellow, Philip K...
(2009), the protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
meets another character in the Astor Court, and, separately, another character mentions having shared a kiss there.
Additional resources
- Nature Within Walls: The Chinese Garden Court at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (An educational video narrated by Maxwell Hearn, Douglas Dillon Curator, Department of Asian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art) http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/publications/pdfs/chinese_garden/chinese_garden.pdf
- Keswick, Maggie. The Chinese Garden: History, Art, and Architecture. New York: Rizzoli, 1978.
- Astorcourt.net Astor Court" http://astorcourt.net/