Contrast and Balance

Contrast and balance The concept The old Chinese philosophy of yin and yang well represents the concept of contrast and balance . The whole cosmos is based on two opposite principles of Yin and Yang: the one cannot exist without the other, as the night cannot exist without the day and vice versa, they are interdependent. No element of the universe can only be completely Yin or just completely Yang. Each of the two elements contains the seed of its opposite, as each woman contains within itself a part of the male, and in every man a female. The balance gives the harmony to the world and the universe. For Eastern culture, the energy flows through human beings by two forces. The energy that comes from the earth and gives nourishment and support rising upwards is called Yin. The energy that comes from the sky, from the air, from the sun and warms going down is Yang. It is very interesting to point out that the same concept in the Western culture was theorized by Heraclitus, Greek philosopher of the VI century Before Christ “What opposes unites, and from things that differ the most beautiful harmony is generated, and all things come about by strife ” (Heraclitus, Fragments ). The ideograms of Yin and Yang can be translated as "the shady side of the hill" for the Yin and "the sunny side of the hill" for Yang. Tradition attributes the Yin female nature, the Moon, the dark, the night, the cold, passivity, inertia, weakness, negative, winter and autumn, damp, the hidden, the introspection, down, the earth, the water, the emptiness, the destructive energies, the west; the color black represents It. At Yang however, is attributed to the masculine nature, the sun, the light, the day, the heat, activity, movement, strength, positive, summer and spring, the dry, the visible, the extroversion, up, sky, fire, full, life-giving energy, the east; It is represented by the color white. It is important to point out that Yin and Yang have no moral significance. The constant interaction between Yin and Yang in the infinity of its manifestations creates life: nothing is created without destruction and there is no life without death like the day doesn’t exist without night in a continuous dance of energy. The movement and the dance are generated by the attraction and the pushing of the elements. All natural cycles are developed in the following sequence: Earth, Lake, Sky, Water, Mountain, Thunder, Wind, Fire, and then again and Earth etc. This cyclic pattern is traditionally represented in octagonal shape from Ba Gua (eight numbers) which is related to the cardinal points The meaning of bagua (ba gua ) is therefore eight numbers. It is generally represented with a central Taijitu representing yin and yang, surrounded by eight trigrams of the I Ching, each aligned to a cardinal point, forming a perfect octagon. The garden The garden is in the shape of the Ba gua , oriented with the cardinal points. In the centre is a Taijitu on a rusted iron cylinder, the taijitu is made in mosaic. The cylinder represents the hill, the shady side of the hill faces North, the sunny side of the hill faces south. The energy of the fire and the water created the iron and then ruin and rust it. The visitors are invited to take a trip starting from south- west. The door is an inverted triangle, alchemical symbol of the Earth, in rusted iron. From the earth the visitors can choose their path going clockwise or contraclockwise. Clockwise they cross the lake on emerging rocks, going in the “cold garden”, in the dark and night. The moon reflects in the lake. The visitor arrives in the silence and meditation area where they can seat down on a metal bench, the gravel is black and the vegetation is dark, with pale blue and dark blue flowers: hydrangeas, Agapanthus, Hostas, and blue perennials Then they cross the river and arrive at the spring where the water comes from dark rocks. Black bamboo closes the boundaries of the cold garden. At the end of the cold garden the visitors find the Mountain. At the foot of the mountain a green Acer Palmatum balances the presence of a red Acer Palmatum in the “Warm Garden”. The mountain is represented by white stones on black sand with firs (picea spp.) in the background. On the opposite side of the lake a wooden deck introduces to the “warm garden” at east, in dominant position on the garden. A gong symbolizes the sun and the thunder, tall golden grasses move in the wind, going ahead the visitors encounter a volcano made with black rocks, and the red Acer Palmatum, red like the fire . The gravel is white, red and yellow perennial flowers sprout among the grasses. The visitors can decide to start from the warm garden and experience the warm colours, the light of the white gravel, the sounds and then enter in the cold garden and feel the freshness of the cold colours, of the water, the silence and quiet. The visitor is involved in the dance of energies, by the contraposition of forces, materials, colours, and sensations, not only in a cosmic journey but also in an internal journey . The project The theme of the Festival, “the contrasts in the garden” made us think at the symbol of Yin and yang as explained in the concept. At the beginning the idea was to divide the garden in two parts: the earth and the water Thinking about the shape we had the idea of using the bagua like in the Feng shui principles and we divided the garden in eight parts. Bagua can give many inspirations: the orientation, materials, colors, elements, energy… The sketches explain the creative process of the project, from a strict form we arrived to soften the forms, in a flowing of curved lines, like day and night flow into each other gradually. Plants, materials and estimated costs The costs are estimated and are expressed in Euros square meters material costs total surface of the garden 82,84 lake 21,00 2.000,00 deck 7,82 wood 2.500,00 central path stone 200,00 central hill (rusted iron and mosaic) rusted iron and mosaic 5.000,00 plants conteiners rusted iron 500,00 main door 300,00 path of the cold garden 7,50 black gravel 110,00 path of the warm garden 10,50 white gravel 150,00 sand of the mountain 19,00 sand 270,00 black rocks 2.000,00 white rocks 2.000,00 beds of flowers soil 1.000,00 "cold garden" flowers: Agapanthus spp, Hydrangea spp, Hosta spp 400,00 "warm garden" grasses and flowers: Calamagrostis X acutiflora, Miscanthus sinensis 'gracillimus', Pennisetum spp, Rudbeckia spp, echinacea spp, 1.000,00 acquatic plants: white waterlilies, marsh plants 500,00 2 acer palmatum 2.000,00 black bamboo 2.000,00 5 firs 800,00 Total 22.730,00 .

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