ABSTRACT
During the second half of the eighteenth century William Chambers’ famous thesis on oriental gardening was instrumental in spreading the Chinese influence in garden design across Europe. It brought exotic detailing and frivolity in particular to the design of buildings, but also ideas on planting design. In Scandinavia for example the oriental influence could be felt from the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth centuries. Chambers appears never to have visited China, and the information for his thesis derived from a mixture of second hand sources and his own ideas based on tradition. In contrast, during the twentieth century Scandinavian design was influential on the rest of the world, primarily due to visiting architects and landscape architects returning to their own countries and applying similar principles.
