Lan Yuan A Garden of Distant Longing

This book tells the story of the world’s southern-most Chinese garden, a garden that was conceptualised in New Zealand, designed and built in Shanghai, before being shipped 13,000 kilometres to Dunedin. Lan Yuan thus connects two different histories, traditions and peoples. In following the garden-building principles of seventeenth-century China and in acknowledging the history of Otago, this beautiful garden both evokes the memory of the Chinese gold miners who reached New Zealand in the 1860s and confidently looks forward to the strengthening of the New Zealand-China relationship. This lavishly produced book - with over 100 colour images - invites readers to linger in the world of Lan Yuan, and to inscribe the garden with new meaning.

Text by James Beattie and Duncan Campbell

Images by Wynston Cooper

Poetry by Sue Wootton