Tianxiang Xiaozhu, Former garden villa and national heritage site in Gusu District, Suzhou, China
Tianxiang Xiaozhu is a 1935 garden villa at 80 Renmin Road, inside the Suzhou Library grounds. Its west side is a residence: a mandarin-duck hall on the south and three two-storey buildings set in a 品 shape around a near-square courtyard, all with hard-mountain roofs of green glazed tiles. The east side is a long rectangular garden with an earth-and-rock hill, a long pond, a hexagonal pavilion and curved corridors.
Xi Qisun, a Shanghai bank manager, built Tianxiang Xiaozhu in 1935 as a garden villa. During construction of the Suzhou Library the compound was repaired, and it now serves as the library's VIP reception room and ancient-documents reading room. In 2014 the State Council listed it as a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level.
The garden, called Baishou Yuan (Hundred Beasts Garden), takes its name from Taihu stones scattered across the artificial hill that resemble various animals. Visitors can look for these rock shapes along the winding paths and flower-lined walkways around the long pond, where a hexagonal pavilion stands on the hilltop.
Tianxiang Xiaozhu stands at 80 Renmin Road, inside the grounds of the Suzhou Library in the Gusu District. Visitors reach it through the library complex rather than from the street, and the former villa now serves as the library's guest reception room and reading room for ancient texts. The garden lies east of the residential courtyard.
The garden hill is known as the Garden of a Hundred Beasts because Taihu stones scattered across it are shaped like various animals. The compound also mixes northern Chinese building style with Western features, and it now serves as the library's VIP reception room and ancient-documents reading room.
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