SGJA Awardee 2014
professor sun xiao xiang

Sun Xiao Xiang is recognised as an integral influence within the first generation of “modern” Landscape Architects in China. He became an individual member of IFLA before the Chinese association received IFLA membership.

In 1946 Sun Xiao Xiang received his Bachelor of Agriculture in Landscape Design at the Department of Horticulture in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. In the 1950s he studied architecture at the Nanjing University, including drawing and oil painting under Professor Xu Beihong from 1944-1952. His career spans over 60 years during which he clearly has had a unique and lasting impact on the development of Landscape Architecture and its education in China.

Sun Xiao Xiang is a very influential pioneering Landscape Architect and Educator in China who continues to deliver lectures to enthusiastic freshmen and post-graduate students at the School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University. He has been teaching continually since 1946, except during the Cultural Revolution, and is always eager to provide recommendations for post-graduate Chinese students to study abroad to get a wider view of the profession.

Professor Sun’s writings have been most influential within Chinese Landscape Architecture, including his book ”Garden Art and Landscape Design” which was first published in 1962 and has been updated until 1992.

He states that a landscape architect should have “5 legs”; one for poetry, one as a painter, one as a horticulturist, one for ecology and one for architecture. Never mind East or West, classical or modern, abstract or realistic, but it has to beautiful, and people will like it, is another of his important statements that has inspired many students”.

Professor Sun has designed seven large botanical gardens from the colder northern Chinese provinces to the tropical south and his newest project is under construction (2014).

Sun Xiao Xiang continues to make an outstanding contribution to Landscape Architecture through his life-long commitment to his chosen profession. His achievement in all aspects of Landscape Architecture, landscape design, research and landscape education has been no less then phenomenal.

Sun Xiao Xiang’s life-long achievement is an example for everyone to follow and he is a most worthy recipient of the IFLA Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award.