177, 181, 182, 184, 185, 187-89, 198, 202, 205, 207-9, 223, 232, 234, 236, and 265; and Color Plates 6-7 and 10.
By Yoshio Takahashi, and used by courtesy of Kodansha, Tokyo: Color Plates 1-3, 5, 9, 11, and 15.
Courtesy of the Bureau of Tourist Industry, Kyoto: Plates 72, 76, 97, and 193.
Courtesy of Kiyoshi Makino: Plates 24-25.
DAVID H. ENGEL
Japanese Gardens for Today
Introduction
SWIRLING out of the Japanese garden a fresh concept of design is running strongly through today's landscape architecture. This lively current forms part of the broad stream, of ideas emanating from the Orient and especially from Japan's seemingly inexhaustible wells of art. In the past few years Occidental architecture and design have been subjected to steady contact through such extensive importation of Far Eastern influences that at times they have appeared to be almost inundated. The responsibility of pointing out the misinterpretations, downright fads, and nonsense in the "Japanese trend" rests with the designers and architects. It remains, of course, for each artistic discipline to study new ideas and practices, to guard against the introduction of the tasteless and irrelevant, and to select from the mass of things what is valid and beautiful.
For landscape architecture and garden design, then, this book is intended to serve as a guide on the subject of Japanese gardens. It shows many kinds of gardens as illustrations of design principles. Its immediate purpose is to provide both professional landscape architects and amateur garden builders with a handbook to help them in their work. The aim here is to stimulate the imagination and to suggest a challenge.
The scope of the book differs from previous works on Japanese gardens in that it neither offers general and abstruse esthetic critiques and interpretations of famous Japanese gardens nor does it delve into their religious, romantic, and historical associations—though in their place these too are fascinating. The Japanese garden is treated here, not as a quaint, exotic, Oriental bird, hut as a living, artistic structure with important significance for people in countries outside of Japan.
The book is the product of on-the-spot research and study and the practical experience of working with a master garden artist—an apprenticeship in design, construction, and plant care—extending over almost two years in Kyoto and other parts of Japan.
Today's widespread interest in garden art is a healthy sign. But of even more significance is the fact that it is the Japanese garden which is causing much of the ferment. Thus there is evidence not only of evolution in the field—a search for better forms in landscape design—but also of rejection, perhaps on both subconscious and conscious levels, of materialistic principles in gardening and landscaping. It may be that this heralds an awakening to the need for gardens which can stimulate responses that spring from our innermost recesses.
The paradox of the mid-twentieth century is that, while the material advantages and luxuries produced by modern technology encompass us and touch all aspects of our lives, we have had the uneasy feeling of being uprooted, of losing contact with nature, of "getting soft." We cannot stem the tide of technology—and perhaps do not even want to. Yet, almost instinctively feeling the need to put down roots in a natural setting, we have moved to Suburbia and beyond to Exurbia. Architects, both of houses and of gardens, have recognized the extent and depth of the necessity to "get back to nature." Witness the contemporary design of homes and gardens which are built for so-called "indoor-outdoor living."
We may at times succeed in the attempt at integrating house and garden, hoping thereby to achieve a kind of harmonious relationship with nature. More often, however, we have missed the point because of our reliance upon a narrowly materialistic, functional approach. It is at that point that we can learn from the Japanese.
Living close to nature is the very essence of life in Japan. The Japanese makes little distinction between nature and deity. His house and garden then seem the perfect cradle, for there he feels closer to his God. House and garden represent the happy marriage of art and nature, and one can barely distinguish a dividing line at which the house ends and the garden begins.
When the concept of the thin line that separates architecture and nature is discussed outside of Japan the point is often raised that the especially close relationship between house and garden might be all very well for Japan. "But," it is asked, "are Japanese gardens functional in America, in Europe? They may work under Japanese conditions but can their principles be applied outside japan?"
The answer is that, of course, no one advocates merely copying the Japanese garden. What is proposed is simply that we understand the principles of its design, its handling of materials, and, above all, its spirit. Once having grasped these essentials, we may proceed to plan a garden, adapting the sense and spirit of Japanese design to the material and physical requirements and limitations of the project.
Indeed, the concept of functionalism has a spiritual as well as a material aspect. Though in recent times it has become a cliche in our daily life, functionalism certainly is neither a new discovery nor does the term indicate an advanced mode of living. It is true, of course, that all that functions in a Japanese setting may not necessarily work favorably outside of Japan. Yet the West, which has become so engrossed in the material aspects of "functional living," may well profit from an appreciation of what a functional garden means to a Japanese. A simple garden of a Japanese home from which the members of the family derive pleasure as they view it through each season of the year surely serves some functional purpose (see, for example, the gardens of Plates 1, 35, 37, 51 and 56). To be sure, the garden has no barbecue grill, swimming pool, or play area, but it does convey, past the open, paper-panelled shoji and across the grass mat tatami threshold, a sense of repose and identification with nature's own harmony. Could not an Occidental garden inducing the same effect also be considered functional? This, of course, is not to say that the way to mental health or peace of mind and soul leads necessarily through a Japanese garden. But rather I suggest only that the meditative, receptive element be recognized as most desirable and that it be combined in appropriate proportions with active, exertive enjoyment of a garden.
The organic form of a Japanese garden, as of a Western garden, depends upon the basic type of building it is designed for—a small private house in town, a hotel or inn, a teahouse, a restaurant, a large country villa, a mansion, palace, or temple. Styles reflect individual taste, local tradition, foreign influences, and changes in the economic and social structure of Japanese society. But despite differences in form and style a good Japanese garden invariably reveals three fundamental characteristics: naturalism, asymmetry, and a drawing together of natural and architectural forms into a unified, harmonious composition. It is a work of art, built on a human scale, naturalistic in content but subjective in spirit.
Color Plate 1. A pond often forms a central element of Japanese garden design. In the pond seen here, the water level has dropped ten inches, temporarily revealing the rocky shoreline that is normally under water (see Color Plate 12). Each rock rests on its own rock piling sunk into the clayey bank. The low shoreline and peninsula in the foreground has a sunken rock bed over which are laid small rounded black stones. Note how the rocks are arranged as promontories and inlets of a real ocean shoreline, some jutting out into the water and some receding into coves. (Katsura Imperial Villa, Kyoto.)
Color Plate 2. A view of the type
