Mira Locher - Zen Gardens: The Complete Works of Shunmyo Masuno, Japans Leading Garden Designer

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book grew from the teaching, inspiration, support, assistance, and encouragement of many people over many yearsthey are too numerous to thank individually, but I am deeply grateful to all. For those who walked with me on the nobedan and stepping-stones of their gardens or sat with me on the engawa to observe the changing shadows when the breeze rustled a branch of the maple tree, I thank them for sharing their knowledge and insight. I am indebted to Shunmyo Masuno for his great teachings and inspiring designs and to Masuno Yoshihiko and Narikawa Keiichi of Japan Landscape Consultants for their steadfast assistance. Many thanks go to those who planted seeds and trimmed branches: Eric Oey, Cal Barksdale, June Chong and Chan Sow Yun from Tuttle Publishing; and Hannah Vaughan. But most of all, the book would not have developed without my tateishi , Murakami Takayuki.

The author gratefully acknowledges the following photo credits: front flap Japanese Zen Garden construction, 1995, Canadian Museum of Civilization, photo Steven Darby, S2000-3621; page , bottom Japanese Zen Garden, 1996, Canadian Museum of Civilization, photo Steven Darby, K2000-1231.

Raked gravel, rocks, and plantings combine in a scene of a river flowing from a waterfall in the karesansui (dry) Rymontei garden at Gionji temple.

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Three carefully arranged rocks in a bed of raked gravel in the Chsetsuko courtyard garden at the Ginrins Rykan condense the essence of the universe into a few simple elements.

TRADITIONAL ZEN GARDENS
IN THE 21st CENTURY

A beautifully shaped pine tree growing on an island of moss is balanced with a rough rock rising from the pond in the garden at the Kyoto Reception Hall.

In Japanese culture, writes Shunmyo Masuno, rather than emphasizing the form of something itself, more importance is placed on the feeling of the invisible things that come with it: restrained elegance, delicate beauty, elegant simplicity and rusticity. The invocation of these qualities is deeply rooted in Japanese aesthetics and is a central tenet in the traditional arts of calligraphy, flower arrangement, tea ceremony, and garden design, among others.

In his gardens, Masuno creates these feelings by emphasizing the design of the atmosphere of a place, rather than the shape of a space or object. Of course, it is possible to achieve this with contemporary materials and compositions as well as long-established elements and arrangements, but in many of his gardens Masuno makes a conscious choice to utilize traditional materials and compositional devicesto create a traditional garden. But what is a traditional Japanese garden in the twenty-first centuryand what is its role in contemporary life?