Japanese garden

Japanese gardens are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden designers to suggest a natural landscape, and to express the fragility of existence as well as time's unstoppable advance. Ancient Japanese art inspired past garden designers. Water is an important feature of many gardens, as are rocks and often gravel. Despite there being many attractive Japanese flowering plants, herbaceous flowers generally play much less of a role in Japanese gardens than in the West, though seasonally flowering shrubs and trees are important, all the more dramatic because of the contrast with the usual predominant green. Evergreen plants are "the bones of the garden" in Japan. Though a natural-seeming appearance is the aim, Japanese gardeners often shape their plants, including trees, with great rigour. Japanese literature on gardening goes back almost a thousand years, and several different styles of garden have developed, some with religious or philosophical implications. A characteristic of Japanese gardens is that they are designed to be seen from specific points. Some of the most significant different traditional styles of Japanese garden are the chisen-shoyū-teien ("lake-spring-boat excursion garden"), which was imported from China during the Heian period (794–1185). These were designed to be seen from small boats on the central lake. No original examples of these survive, but they were replaced by the "paradise garden" associated with Pure Land Buddhism, with a Buddha shrine on an island in the lake. Later large gardens are often in the kaiyū-shiki-teien, or promenade garden style, designed to be seen from a path circulating around the garden, with fixed stopping points for viewing. Specialized styles, often small sections in a larger garden, include the moss garden, the dry garden with gravel and rocks, associated with Zen Buddhism, the or teahouse garden, designed to be seen only from a short pathway, and the tsubo-niwa, a very small urban garden.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (40)

Related courses (12)

Related lectures (21)

AR-506: Sustainable Japanese architecture and landscape

This course focuses on the circulation of the imaginary between cultures. It shows how major Western architects, landscape designers, painters and sculptors have been inserting sustainable architectur

AR-402(am): Studio MA2 (Everaert and Lateur)

'Preparing for the apocalypse' takes you to Puglia, where people are confronted with millions of century-old olive trees dying. In dialogue with local communities, we will explore whether architecture

AR-302(am): Studio BA6 (Everaert and Lateur)

Japanese garden

History of Japan

The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to the Paleolithic, around 38-40,000 years ago. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inventions were introduced from Asia. During this period, the first known written reference to Japan was recorded in the Chinese Book of Han in the first century AD. Around the 3rd century BC, the Yayoi people from the continent immigrated to the Japanese archipelago and introduced iron technology and agricultural civilization.

Rinzai school

The Rinzai school (Rinzai-shū, ) is one of three sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism (along with Sōtō and Ōbaku). The Chinese Linji school of Chan was first transmitted to Japan by Myōan Eisai (1141 –1215). Contemporary Japanese Rinzai is derived entirely from the Ōtōkan lineage transmitted through Hakuin Ekaku (1686–1769), who is a major figure in the revival of the Rinzai tradition. Rinzai is the Japanese line of the Chinese Linji school, which was founded during the Tang dynasty by Linji Yixuan (Japanese: Rinzai Gigen).

The French Library: Symmetry and Nature MOOC: Groundscape Architecture Design Lab, re-thinking cities underground

Delves into the design of the Bibliothèque de France and its connection to nature and knowledge.

Artificial Ground: An Open Orchard MOOC: Groundscape Architecture Design Lab, re-thinking cities underground

Delves into the concept of artificial ground in landscape architecture, exploring the balance between nature and human intervention.

Composting: A Sustainable Practice

Delves into composting benefits, materials, and practical vermicomposting techniques for sustainable soil enrichment.