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 Jim Dawson (at right) in Song Mei Pavilion design discussions with garden designers in Chongqing, China
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Jim Dawson has a dream: to create a Chinese garden in Seattle.
Jim Dawson is an architect who has his own architecture and planning firm in Seattle. He visited China in 1985 and became fascinated with Chinese gardens. They were completely new to him and completely unlike gardens in the West. Jim learned as much as he could about them.
Over the years, Jim’s interest in Chinese gardens led him to Chongqing,
one of Seattle’s Sister Cities. Chonqing, which was located on the Yangtze
River, was a major inland port, just like Seattle. Citizens in Seattle and Chongqing
had exchanged visits and developed close relationships. During the mid-1980s,
a group of people in Seattle decided to honor their friends in Chongqing by creating
a Chinese garden in Seattle. They would work with designers, craftspeople, and
architects from Chongqing to design and build it. (Click here
to view an architectural drawing of the Pavilion.)
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A Chongqing artisan hand-chisels the round stone base
for one of the Song Mei Pavilion column.
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Jim quickly became involved. He helped create a non-profit organization, the Seattle Chinese Garden Society, to help design and build the garden. And now it’s about to become a reality — a sampling of China in Seattle.
Want to meet Jim Dawson and learn more about Chinese gardens? Join us as the Boomerang Box delivers the Chinese garden’s Song Mei Pavilion to Seattle! You’re invited to join us: Monday February 22, 1999, at 11 AM at South Seattle Community College.
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