Landscape Design in Japan: Traditions and Modernity

Passing the gallery

Text: Alena Anikst

A photo: - (c) Michael Freeman

Magazine: N5 (83) 2004

For a long time Japanese tradition prefers loud - muffled, to declarative - unsaid, glitter - reflection The most amazing and unusual modern gardens in the world, such as the Garden of Glass and Water or the Garden with one tree, are located in Japan and are created by leading designers and architects of the country. Surprisingly, in developing a new style, Japanese gardeners use centuries-old traditions. The history of Japanese gardens dates back over a thousand years. Already in the XI century, was published a guide on landscape gardening culture - "Sakuteiki". It is believed that the first gardens appeared in Shinto monasteries. Spending life in silence and solitude between prayer and the contemplation of nature, the talented monks came up with the law of the location of ponds and mounds, repeating the sea and mountains. The sacred power of the wild (kami) was represented by individual stones (iwakura). A visitor to a Shinto garden came into contact with the Divine and experienced feelings similar to those of a European in a Christian temple. In the XIV-XV centuries, the famous karensuy (dry landscape) appeared - the style of Buddhist temples, expressing the severity and austerity of Zen philosophy. For many Europeans, the idea of ​​Zen minimalism is associated with modern design, but in Japanese culture it also includes tea ceremonies, the noo theater, masterful black ink painting, exquisite calligraphy and unique symbolic gardens. For a Buddhist monk, creating a garden is a path, learning diligence, cleansing. There is the concept of "ishidateso" - laying the stones by the priest. Stones are the most important element, in order to understand them, one must learn to read their soul, because stones have their own lives, like animals and plants. Zen garden should have to contemplate, to cause a sense of emotional response. The basic compositional principle of uncertainty, the harmonious equilibrium of all elements, in which there is freedom, and order, and movement, and peace. Designing a modern Zen garden is an attempt to achieve the maximum expression of the essence with minimal means. This principle was brilliantly demonstrated by designer Shanmayo Masumo in a new garden for a hotel in Tokyo. The main problem was to create an atmosphere of nature in the middle of the city, which is conducive to thinking alone. In the 15th century in Japan, tea drinking turned into a ritual ceremony in a special house. Stones appear in the garden to cross the stream, a vessel for washing hands and lanterns illuminating the paths. For example, architect Kisho Kurokawa, author of the Museum of Modern Art in Hiroshima, built a tea garden on the roof of a house in downtown Tokyo. Sitting in a modern apartment for a cup of tea, a person admires the classic garden with a stone path. Lush trees on the background of tall buildings look like a wonderful oasis. "When you copy the garden of a famous master of the past, do not lose sight of the wishes of the host, but reproduce to your own taste," Tatibana no Tositsuna, author of Sakuteiki, advised in the 11th century.