History Identification of Landscape Architecture Design: A Case Study of Yinhe Square (Yinhe Guangchang), Tianjin, China
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Abstract
Chinese municipal squares are typically analyzed through governance, publicness, or post‑reform urban development, with little attention to world landscape architecture history. This study adopts a qualitative interpretative methodology and typological analysis to examine Yinhe Square (Yinhe Guangchang) in Tianjin, China. Rather than comparing the site to specific historical landmarks, the research evaluates its spatial configuration against broader landscape principles from prehistoric to twentieth‑century traditions. Findings reveal that Yinhe Square integrates design ideas from Neolithic menhirs (territoriality, collective memory), Classical agoras and Roman forums (civic openness and scale), ancient theaters (terraced gathering), East Asian principles of balance and appropriation (shakkei), Renaissance axial symmetry, Japanese hide‑and‑reveal sequencing, English garden naturalistic composition, nineteenth‑century public park accessibility, and twentieth‑century correspondence between form and context. The square operates as a contemporary palimpsest of global landscape architecture principles rather than solely a product of governance‑led public space formation. This conclusion challenges prevailing tendencies in Chinese urban space research and demonstrates the relevance of landscape architectural history for analyzing contemporary civic landscapes. The authors acknowledge this as one interpretative perspective among many possible readings. The findings offer conceptual resources for landscape architecture academics, urban historians, and practitioners seeking historically informed design and analysis of Chinese municipal squares.
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