With this particular landscape architecture project, what was the most difficult issue your firm faced or the most unexpected challenge that may have influenced new thought and unique approaches in the project?

This Garden of 10,000 Bridges in Xián is our expression of Taoism.

Look at China, in my youth, China was still going through a painful history with Cultural Revolution and many other political or social movements. They had a real hard time. Today, China is a country which pushes the world's economy forward.
These bridges, a chain of the ups and downs, are a reflection of the life story; men come up they see a scenery, they soon come down again and there is another world. Through the thousand bridges travel through this continuous changes of altitude, light, sound, color and space, it becomes a poetic reflection of life. This is my expression of the understanding of Taoism.

In another word, it is the garden telling the tale of a dragon, and we are not afraid to use the classical typology of Chinese culture: bold red color, deep bridges, bamboo, and the shadow of a dragon along a twining route. The fine-tuning of its interpretation was challenging, yet not difficult, because it was all handled in good hands.

In general, do you feel that the role of the landscape architect is changing on similar building types? Did this project expand or evolve your role as a landscape architect in any way?

Basically a good garden should create an illusion. The narrative story of a garden can reflect history or cultural influences. Excellent design is about transporting feelings and fantasy to the visitor. For people from the West the Chinese gardens are overwhelming. They are multi-layered and full of history, the philosophical background is reflected in them. I have been always impressed by the diversity in the botany and fascinated by the unique icons and built elements of them. This Garden of 10,000 Bridges is a poetic project which brought us a deeper respect for Chinese History.

How is your installation or project possible today in a way that it may not have been in the past, and how have current trends or thoughts in landscape architecture inspired new creative solutions?

There is no future anticipate without history. Our idea is, our innovation should be linked to our history, should be reflecting the history.

In the context of this project, how is your office and your design process being influenced by current thoughts in academic curricula? In turn, are your current projects and processes guiding the ongoing reformulation and development of academic curricula?

We are very pleased to have this as our first project in China because we are very impressed by the context of the park and the city of Xi’an. We feel that the rich philosophical background of the Chinese culture of garden design is the key inspiration for this design of West 8. West 8 always tries to learn from the different cultures in which we work. Therefore we study each context very closely and try to anticipate from their differences. We strongly hope that the landscape architecture will have many chances of interchange in the future between the richness of the Chinese garden culture and the European one.

Architype Review thanks Adriaan Geuze for his interview and for contributing to this collection of Architype Dialogue.