0

Lu San Chinese Gardens, Portland, Oregon

by Bonnie Moreland
Lu San Chinese Gardens
11/3/2016

Fall colors and leaves changing colors

The Lu San Chines Garden is a walled Chinese garden enclosing a full city block, roughly 40,000 square feet (4,000 m2) in the Chinatown area of the Old Town Chinatown neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. The garden is influenced by many of the famous classical gardens in Suzhou.

In 1988 Suzhou, China and Portland became sister cities. The garden was designed by Kuang Zhen and built by 65 artisans from Suzhou on land donated by NW Natural on a 99-year lease; groundbreaking occurred in July 1999, and construction was completed 14 months later at a cost of about $12.8 million. 500 tons of rock, including Chinese scholar's rocks from Lake Tai (Taihu stone), were brought from China and used in the garden.