Xue family garden

Xue family garden

"Jiangnan's first luxury house" -- Wuxi Xuejia garden is a large-scale bureaucratic house of Xue Fucheng, a famous thinker, diplomat, political commentator, writer and representative of early bourgeois reformers in Wuxi in the late Qing Dynasty. It is located in the downtown area of Wuxi, covering an area of 21000 square meters.

brief introduction

Xue Fucheng is good at thinking, diligent in writing, brave in practice, and has made remarkable achievements in domestic and foreign affairs. Therefore, the Qing government specially awarded "imperial envoy No. 1" for his historical achievements. Up to now, the inscription "imperial envoy Di" written by Emperor Guangxu is still hanging on the forehead of general Xue's gate.

scale

Xue Fucheng personally planned the garden before going abroad. He personally sketched it and raised a construction fund of 72000 yuan. Xue Yiyun, his eldest son, was responsible for the construction. It took four years (1890-1894). The house is composed of three axes: the central axis, the eastern axis and the Western axis. It has a large scale, rigorous layout, a combination of Chinese and Western elements, and obvious characteristics. The central axis consists of 7 entrances, including an open and open foyer, a spacious and bright sedan hall, a luxurious main hall, a living room, the largest existing turntable building in China and a back garden with Jiangnan garden style; the East axis consists of Wuxi early industrial and Commercial Club (warehouse Hall) and exquisite flower hall stage.

Structural features

The front four entrances (foyer, sedan hall, main hall and back hall) of Xuejia garden are all nine Bay buildings. When Xue Fucheng built his house, his official title was the third grade, and he was rewarded with the second grade. According to the regulations of the imperial court, the width of the hall of his house could not exceed five rooms, but his house had far exceeded the standard. For this reason, when the Xue family built the house, they used the unique split double row columns in the most eye-catching sedan hall and main hall, turning the nine bay into three relatively independent three Bay. The main hall is separated by the exquisite hexagonal honeycomb brick wall and the moving door with Western room decoration style, which is unique in Wuxi area and has not been reported in the whole country. The main hall is the most important and luxurious hall in the whole house. Its carved beams and painted buildings are well preserved and exquisitely carved. The light of flying gold and the burden brocade of red lacquer all show the luxury style. The brick carving and wood carving in the main hall are incomparable with other buildings in the former residence.

The furniture, couplets, plaques and miscellaneous utensils in the front four of Xuejia garden were restored as they were, which fully reflected the official culture of the late Qing Dynasty, while the turntable building, back garden, Chuanjing building and East Garden fully reflected the household culture of the late Qing Dynasty. The turntable building is two stories high and of pure wood structure. It is 11 Bay wide with a hard top. There are five stacks of fire sealing walls on the gable. The two ends of the building are connected by two chambers. The plane forms a "Hui" shape, and the middle is a rectangular patio. This kind of building is a kind of common residential building form for large families in the south of the Yangtze River. The turntable building here is the largest existing turntable building in China, known as "the first turntable building in China". In the northwest corner of the back garden, there is a Chuanjing building with the architectural heritage of Ningbo Tianyi Pavilion, as well as Huangshi mountain, exotic flowers and plants, bamboo forest, qiaoke, corridor bridges, pavilions and so on. The newly renovated Chuanjing building is the most distinctive scenery in the back garden, which is a must visit place for literati and poets. The flower hall and Water Pavilion stage in the east garden are the most typical gardens in the south of the Yangtze River. The stage is built on the pool, facing north from South and across from the main hall. It is the most exquisite and complete ancient family stage in Wuxi. On both sides of the stage are Li Hongzhang's flat couplets: "peach blossom and flowing water in the world, wind and moon Sheng Xiao sitting at night", which makes people sigh that life is like a dream, with no trace. In the dead of night, I sing to the moon and feel that peach blossom has no lover. Jiangnan folk music and traditional operas are often performed on the stage, which will make you experience the feeling of listening to music through water.

More than 160 houses in Xue's garden lie peacefully on more than 20000 square meters of land. Horizontally, the nine rooms on the central axis are not enough, and two wings are added on the left and right. Vertically, the front and back seven rooms are not enough, and the middle is decorated with gardens and courtyards. It is a large-scale, distinctive and rich in connotation. It has the architectural style of absorbing Western culture on the basis of tradition and the garden style open pattern suitable for social communication. It is a large-scale house in Jiangnan during the period of social transformation in modern China, It fills the gap in the history of modern architecture in China, and has important historical value, research value and tourism value. In 2001, it was designated as a national key cultural relics protection unit by the State Council.

present situation

Since its opening to tourists on New Year's day in 2003, Xuejia garden has received more than 100000 tourists from home and abroad. Party and state leaders Zhu Rongji, Li Ruihuan, Wu Guanzheng, Li Changchun, Qian Qichen, Hui Liangyu and Hua Jianmin have successively inspected Xuejia garden. They all expressed strong interest in its exquisite architecture and landscape.

Address: 152 Xueqian street, Liangxi District, Wuxi City

Longitude: 120.295983

Latitude: 31.570927

Tel: 0510-82735309

Chinese PinYin : Xue Jia Hua Yuan