Landscape design has been of great significance in Chinese culture for more than 2,500 years. Emperors have bankrupted their dynasties building vast gardens, and the design of even the simplest garden blends the traditional arts of landscaping with painting, poetry, and calligraphy to a remarkable degree.

In Taoist philosophy, the essence of everything in nature is chi or spiritual harmony with the universe. Landscape design, filtered through centuries of Confucianism, Taoism, and later Buddhism, seeks to create a special haven separate from the distractions of everyday life, places where people can experience "an eternal moment of suspended time when man and nature seem in perfect accord." (from The Chinese Garden, by Maggie Keswick)