With architecture as the manifestation manner, Yangzhou garden creation skill combines stone laying to build poetic and comprehensive art of the most livable environment supplemented by plants and water, scientific configuration and sophisticated combination. Firstly created in the Western Han Dynasty, it got prosperous in the Sui Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, became mature in the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty and reached the top period in the Qing Dynasty.
Buildings pursue the overall effect, reveal the beauty of engraving in details to the fullest extent, such as double roads and winding corridors, engraving on lattice window and rubbed bricks with tight joints etc., esp. this garden creation skill is good at building such shapes as mountains, springs, waterfalls, rivers and waves etc., the waterside scenery such as boats, bridges, water pavilions and pool banks etc., making people to have the feeling that seems to have water but actually no while the water exists in artistic conception and revealing the sophisticated beauty of gardens. Yangzhou style stone laying is widely applied in the creation process, either for creating danger or showing dynamic status in an airy manner, and is called as “hollow in the middle and odd outside”.
Yangzhou garden creation skill has formed its own style by melting the southern and northern styles: it hides beauty in majesty, reaches the extreme elegance, while halls, corridors and pavilions are tall, open and lofty, the artificial mountains are profound and thick, lattice windows are exquisite and transparent, setting up its own particular style in traditional garden creation skills. The representative buildings also include He Garden, Geyuan Garden and Xu Garden etc.; in recent years, Yangzhou garden element features have also been mixed into the buildings in US, Germany, Thailand, British, and Canada etc.
