Japanese gardens do not rely on bright flowers or exotic plants for their beauty, focusing instead on the simplicity of trees, shrubs and moss.
The oldest Japanese garden design manual, Toshitsuna Tachibana’s Sakuteiki (“The Art of Setting Stones”), was published during the late Heian period. This book documents construction methods used in Shinden gardens and mentions techniques for the allotment of land, arrangement of stones and artificial waterfalls, drainage and plantings. It is a compilation of rules that were codified so that designers with less well-developed sensibilities could create a successful garden. The purpose of the ideal garden, according to this treatise, is to evoke nature in its primal form. Stones must be carefully chosen and arranged, since their composition will influence whether they bring good or bad luck. It was apparently partly due to such beliefs that symmetry was avoided. The Sakuteiki suggests that “water should flow east, then south, and finally to the west.” Its rules about setting rocks include suggestions that “there should be more horizontal than vertical stones in a composition; and a stone that appears to be running away should be accompanied by chasing stones; and the leaning stone should be accompanied by supporting stones.”
A radically different concept of garden design emerged during the subsequent Kamakura (1185–1333) and Nanbokucho (1333– 1392) periods. Zen temples or monasteries gradually moved away from towns and up to the mountains. Priestly garden designers called ishi-tate-so or “rock-setting priests” created retreats for Buddhist meditation by arranging rocks in the forest. One of the most famous of these was Soseki Muso (1275–1351) who designed many gardens using sand, gravel and stones, with a reduced emphasis on natural vegetation.
The Muromachi period (1392–1466) is often called the “Golden Age” of Japanese gardens. Trends begun by Soseki Muso and others blossomed into karesansui gardens. These often depicted miniaturized landscapes of mountains, currents of running water, and riverbeds of sand and rocks. The karesansui gardens had meanings inspired by profound Zen concepts or Chinese brush paintings. Ideals such as “the strength to swim against the current” were depicted in specific rock formations. Other gardens were designed to “startle” the mind into a more spiritual state—acting like koan or cosmological riddles such as the famous “sound of one hand clapping” that were meant to trigger a higher consciousness. The sight of raked sand or rock compositions amidst abundant greenery in Kyoto is as mind-bending as an oasis in a desert.
By the middle Muromachi period, ishi-tate-so Zen gardener priests were creating gardens for the elite samurai warrior class in return for financial support for their temples. Artisans of the lower class, called senzui kawaramono (“mountain, water and riverbank men”), constructed gardens under the supervision of Zen monks. Examples of these dry-landscape gardens include Ryoan-ji (page 54) and Daisen-in in Kyoto. The great creative leap in minimalism, understatement and simplicity in the Japanese arts during this period came from the convergence of two powerful forces: Zen Buddhism and Bushido (the “way of the warrior”). Yasegaman no bunka, or the “way of frugality,” was another factor relevant to people who had to deal with a lack of material things and an often meager supply of food. Bushido teachings made the lack of possessions a poetic and heroic virtue by popularizing the concept that the very small and simple can represent the very large and great, and that the possession of worldly things is unnecessary. The powerful warrior class as well as wealthy merchants in this period embraced these principles and emerged as patrons of the Zen arts including Noh theater, tea ceremony and garden design.
During the Warring States period (1467–1573), two new garden types were added to the repertoire of garden designers. One sort popularized by warlords made use of rocks of unique shapes or vivid colors, and exotic plants such as cycads. The other type was tea ceremony gardens popularized by tea masters Shuko Murata, Sen no Rikyu and others. These gardens were embodiments of the philosophy of tea emphasizing simplicity, under-statement, harmony, refinement, and control over one’s ego. All these concepts are expressed in the term wabi sabi. The study of tea in Japan includes not only tea making but calligraphy, flower arrangement, architecture and garden design. Tea gardens have a roji or “dewy path” made of stepping stones leading up to the tea hut, stone lanterns for mood lighting, stone washbasins for visitors to purify themselves, and fences that enclose and separate the world of tea from the outer mundane world. The journey into a tea arbor along the stone roji path is akin to an initiation rite into the world of tea. Inside the tea garden, the hut and other garden elements emphasize rusticity and seek to merge with their natural surroundings.
In the Edo (Tokyo) period, garden designs from earlier periods continued to be practiced, and a synthesis of these hitherto different styles took place. Daimyos (hereditary lords) and warrior landlords constructed large chisen hybrid gardens. Enshu Kobori is the best known designer of this period, and was responsible for one of the most famous examples of this genre, the Katsura Rikyu garden for an imperial prince. Warlords created large “stroll gardens” inside their castles and mansions which usually had a pond or artificial hill at the center with a winding path around it so that visitors could walk from one scenic spot to another, experiencing constantly shifting scenery and viewing inspiring symbols. Chisen stroll gardens were also designed to be admired from inside the house. Examples of this style include Happo-en in Tokyo (page 168) and Koraku-en in Okayama. Unfortunately, many superb gardens belonging to the daimyos were destroyed during the battles leading up to the Meiji Restoration and soon afterwards.
Stone lanterns are wrapped in straw to protect them from the freezing weather in Kanazawa. This is done so skillfully that such wrapped lanterns have become symbolic of Kanazawa gardens.
The Edo period resulted in 250 years of uninterrupted peace. Businesses prospered, resulting in the emergence of wealthy merchants who constructed gardens within the more limited spaces in their townhouses. Tiny gardens inside long, narrow machiya merchant homes are called naka niwa or tsubo niwa. Such gardens were meant to be viewed from a porch or from inside the house. Openings around such gardens were sized and located to provide tantalizing glimpses of the gardens and to suggest interior spaces larger than they actually were. Since merchants were considered lower in social class than samurai, wealthy merchants were eager to express their refinement through the design of gardens and through patronage of the arts.
During the Meiji period, garden design veered sharply away from Japanese traditions under the government’s policy of “uncompromising Westernization.” Former daimyos lost their estates as the government implemented land reform. While some gardens were converted into public parks, others were repurchased and rebuilt by daimyos who had become powerful businessmen and politicians. A well-known garden aficionado of this period was the soldier/politician Aritomo Yamagata, who twice served as the prime minister of Japan. Professional garden designers of that time include the seventh-generation Jihei Ogawa, also known as Ueji. Ogawa is credited with modernizing traditions at gardens such as the International House of Japan in Tokyo (page 200).
Parks open to the public without discrimination exemplified the revolutionary new ideal of a classless society in Meiji-era Japan. The government at this time sought to modernize (read “Westernize”) Tokyo along the lines of the great capitals of the world, and invited British architect Josiah Conder and others to design Western-style buildings and gardens, as well as train Japanese architects in Western techniques and aesthetics. The German firm of Hermann Ende and Wilhelm Bochman was particularly prolific, and proposed a neo-Baroque plan of radial streets and public parks ringed by ministerial buildings for the area south and east of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. Hibiya Park was the result of the many changes and compromises to these plans, and it became a major tourist attraction as people flocked to see this first Western-style park. Grassy lawns, rose gardens, flowerbeds, ponds with swans, and promenades for families to stroll in were novel attractions of the time. Planting techniques from England, Germany and France were studied and modified to suit Japanese conditions. These gardens were promoted as a symbol of Japan’s modernity compared to the old gardens of the feudal Japan. A similar philosophy infused the gardens and parks of the pre-and postwar periods, when ambitious public works were undertaken. Yoyogi Park and Komazawa Park in Tokyo, built for the 1964 Olympics, are good examples of this effort. However, the sensibilities of the traditional garden