景观服务

园林所提供的服务不限于休憩和观赏，更包括为民众提供满足实用需求的生活服务。在6世纪前后，欧洲修道院的庭院里有菜圃、果园和药草园，也有装饰性质的花园，满足僧侣们生活的自给自足。此外，当时的教会还兼有学校、医院的职能，寺院庭园中的药草园种植草药提供药材，是向民众提供医疗等服务的场所。在同时代的中国，隋唐长安城内建有公共游赏的园囿，例如曲江池和乐游原，一处临水、一处登高。杜甫《乐游园歌》中“阊阖晴开詄荡荡，曲江翠幕排银榜”，描写的就是天宝时期曲江游赏的盛况。也是在这一时期，百姓被“准入”佛寺园林开展活动，“可游、可登、可宿、可食”，寺院园林成为城市活动的集散地。

在漫长的前工业时代，中西方的园林服务对象主体是王族权贵、教会、士大夫等特定阶级，但是也都在一定程度上具有服务于民众的特征。之后受到启蒙运动思想的影响，园林从过去主要迎合特权阶层审美和需求服务，走向为平民和公众服务。时至19世纪初，工业革命的浪潮兴起，伴随着纺织业、钢铁业等的蓬勃发展，空气污染、居住环境恶化等问题在城市中日益凸显，为响应城市环境质量和公共卫生提升的需求，城市公园作为一种为公众服务的福利设施发展起来。19世纪40年代，英国开始出现城市公园的建设热潮，并带动了各国的城市公园建设运动，包括唐宁、奥姆斯特德在美国推动的大规模城市公园营建。由此，园林不仅是为各个阶层的民众提供公共开放的活动场所，还进一步服务于城市环境质量的改善，为居民带来健康惠益。在20世纪初，朱启钤主持北京城改造时提出“公园开放运动”，开放了中山公园、城南公园等大型公园，并推广种植行道树等市容绿化工作，让普通百姓享受到城市中的园林生活。

现代风景园林诞生的170余年来，人们对于生存环境的要求随着社会经济的进步和地球环境的演化而持续提升，风景园林介入人与自然关系的尺度不断扩张，所提供景观服务的范畴日益丰富。19世纪末，人们设立国家公园、自然保护地的目的主要还是围绕创造“公共公园、服务民众利益和享受娱乐空间”，然而到了20世纪以后，生物多样性丧失和生态系统退化的危机凸显，威胁人类社会的持久发展，设立自然保护地成为人类减缓对环境的压力和对自然提供给人类的生态系统服务和文化价值实施长久保护的最重要途径。在国际公约引导和多学科共同努力下，建立了今天仍在不断扩大的全球保护地网络，将景观服务扩展到了保护和修复地球土地的广阔领域。

从农业文明时代为人创造生产、休憩和观赏的空间，到工业文明时代助力人们适应高速城市化进程下的环境剧变，再到后工业时代致力于自然保护和受损土地的修复，风景园林通过调和人和自然系统，创造出适合不同时代所需，服务于公众使用、生态平衡健康并具有美学价值的人类生活境域。在当下及未来，面对气候变化、公共健康风险、社会性危机等复杂性挑战，风景园林在顺应技术更新、不断扩展服务范畴和途径的同时，要坚守学科始终服务于公众需求的价值特征，创造真正给居民带来幸福感的人居环境。

Landscape Service

Offering a visual feast and places to rest, gardens provide subsistence services to satisfy the practical needs of the public. Around the 6th century, the courtyards of European monasteries featured vegetable gardens,orchards, herb gardens, and ornamental gardens as well,making monks self-sufficient. Moreover, the church also exercised the function of a school and a hospital, offering medical service to the public benefiting from herbs from the gardens. At that time, China boasted the capital city of Chang’an in the Sui and Tang Dynasties when gardens were built for public tours, including Qujiang Pool, a place adjacent to water, and the Leyou Area, a place famous for climbing. “Though the wide open front gate of the imperial place is solemn and magnificent, the plague above it is dwarfed by the tent for touring nobles to rest and feast”are lines quoted fromSong for the Leyouby the famous poet Du fu, describing the booming scene of Qujiang Pool bustling with people. It was in this period that folks were“allowed to” enter the temples and gardens to engage in activities including “touring, climbing hills, lodging and dining”, making the gardens the hub of cities.

In the long pre-industrial times, gardens in China and the West mainly provided services to specific classes involving imperial kinsmen, the church and scholarofficials, despite serving common people to some extent.Later, influenced by the Enlightenment, the function of gardens shifted from mainly catering to the aesthetics needs of the privileged class to serving the public. At the beginning of the 19th century, with the rise of the industrial revolution and accompanied by the booming of the textile and steel industries, such problems as air pollution and deterioration of the living environment became increasingly prominent in cities. To address these problems, urban parks developed as welfare facilities to provide service to the public. In the 1840s, the United Kingdom began to see a boom in urban park construction,and other countries followed suit, including large-scale urban park construction led by Downing and Olmsted in the United States. Therefore, parks and gardens not only functioned as public place available for people of all ranks,but also contributed to improving urban environmental quality and public health. In early 20th century, when Zhu Qiqian initiated the reconstruction of Beijing city,he advocated the “Park Opening Movement”, rendering such large parks as Zhongshan Park and Chengnan Park open to the public. He also engaged in greening work like popularizing street trees to beautify the city. Thus, ordinary people gained access to city gardens.

Socioeconomic progress and the evolution of earth environment have been seen since the birth of the modern landscape architecture more than 170 years ago, and people had increasingly higher demand for living environment. In this context, landscape architecture played an increasing important role in the relationship between human and nature, and offered a wider variety of services. At the end of the 19th century, the purpose of establishing national parks and nature reserves was mainly to “create public parks, recreational spaces and for the interests of the people”. But since the 20th century, biodiversity loss and degraded ecosystems have threatened sustainable development of human society, so establishing nature reserves has become the most important way for human beings to protect environment and permanently preserve cultural values and ecosystem services bestowed by nature.Guided by international conventions and benefiting from multidisciplinary efforts, a global network of protected areas has been established and developed, extending the connotation of landscape services to the protection and restoration of land on the Earth.

From creating space for production, rest and tour in the era of agricultural civilization, helping people adapt to drastic changes in the environment amid the rapid process of urbanization in the industrial age, and to focusing on natural conservation and restoration of damaged land in the post-industrial era, landscape architecture coordinates the relationship between man and nature, and creates a human living environment both of aesthetic value for public use,thus suitable for different eras. At present, facing complex challenges such as climate change, public health risks,and social crises, landscape architecture profession must adhere to the value characteristics of serving public needs,while adapting to technological updates and continuously expanding the scope and methods of services, so as to create a living environment that truly brings happiness to the public.

Editor-in-chief: Professor ZHENG Xi

October 1, 2022