Click here to read the whole article (881 KB) - European-Hospital

The Japanese
Garden
ynthesis of the
Senses
For many Europeans the ideal garden is the
romantic dream of that safe haven where man
and nature, both unspoilt and benign, live in
harmony, far away from the ugly and mundane
of everyday life. There are red rose bushes and
mallow; white rhododendrons and hydrangeas
nestle in the semi-shade underneath the apple
tree; in the grass next to the small pond with the
reeds large daisies have been allowed to spread
merrily, and over there, only a few steps away
from the terrace, parsley and rosemary are ready
and waiting to be picked for dinner. The birds are
singing in the trees and the air is filled with gentle
humming and buzzing of tiny animals which
seem to have been making this peaceful place
their home for centuries. You want to lie in the
grass and dream in the sunshine...
T he Japanese gardener takes quite a
different view – his planting is not dictacted
by the eye but by the soul. His garden is
charged with no less a task than to express
century-old Eastern mythology: it is a mental
attitude and religious belief. His garden is
where Buddha lives.
The German landscape architect Christhard
Ehring explains: “The Far East knows no hierarchy
of creation. Man regards himself as part of
living and inanimate nature; mountains, rocks,
lakes, rivers, man and animal are ‘nearly equal’,
they are all creatures of the cosmos. That is
why the stylistic elements of a Japanese garden
are not objects of decoration but traditional
components of nature.“
29

Accordingly, stones represent mountains and
rocks, raked gravel or sand, the sea and
trimmed bushes, wooded hills – at the same
time symbolising Paradise where Buddha lives.
Consequently, the European and the Japanese
gardener are worlds apart. In Germany, for example,
it takes three years to become a gardener,
in Japan, ten. The required standard of
knowledge of traditional culture, which in
Japan dates back to the 8th century, is incomparably
higher.
Such knowledge encompasses the theory of
feng-shui which has recently found its way
into European living rooms. The theory of the
earth’s natural energy streams (geomancy)
is included in all aspects of house and garden
design. No Japanese person would dream of
building a house without first discussing
position, orientation and the layout of doors
and windows with a geomancer. The Tao
concept of yin and yang is another significant
aspect of Japanese garden design.
Y in represents the soft, feminine principle,
yang, the hard, masculine principle. Applied
to a Japanese garden this means that a (hard)
rock requires (soft) water in a certain proportion
as not to disturb the harmony of nature
(and the cosmos). Or a radically trimmed dry
plant needs to be balanced by just the right
amount of naturally grown moist moss.
In view of such challenges a Japanese gardener
cannot wait until a tree or a bush has reached
its full size years later – when it may well end
up upsetting the balance of the overall composition.
His garden is complete and finished as
soon as it has been built while his European
colleague may return a year later to see how
30
his plants have developed. And a Japanese
garden designer would never consider a garden
independently of a house or a flat. For
him, the garden is as much part of the house
as the living room; in fact, the garden is part of
the living room. Even where space is tight, a
Japanese person will always try to fit a “Tsuboniwa”,
a miniature garden, into the inner
courtyard where the gardener will try his best
to create an impression of space even if the
whole garden is toy-size. And where there is
space for a small water stream, the origin of
the Tsubo-niwa in the large pond garden becomes
apparent.
The pond garden is the oldest of Japan’s
traditional gardens. Its origins go back to the
large-scale water landscapes designed for a
palace or a temple between the 8th and the
12th century. On a large pond bridges linked
small islands. The most important feature
was its position within the landscape.

T he “Sakutei-ki“, the oldest surviving
manual of garden design dating from the
11th century, contains the following passage
highlighting the Buddhist core of garden
philosophy: “Design the pond with respect to
its position in the land, follow its request …
think of the mountains and waters of living
nature and reflect constantly upon such
settings.”
The development of dry gardens between
the 12th and the 15th century was strongly
influenced by Zen Buddhism. Zen, the form of
Buddhism which strives for an ideal state of
perfect emptiness, used to be the religion of
the Samurai, the sword fighters. Water is symbolised
by gravel or sand; the garden’s abstract
and very graphic composition, a ”visual manifestation
of emptiness“, serves as an aid to
meditation.
The tea garden, which originated in the 16th
century, is the setting for one of the most elegant
ceremonies in the world, the Japanese tea
ceremony. Meant to convey the image of a remote
mountain village, it is planted with ferns
and grasses which are contrived to appear natural.
Only when immersed in the ceremony
does the observer realise the planned beauty
through which the visitor is guided by carefully
placed stepping stones.
In Germany, one of the most successful examples
of a Japanese garden can be seen in
Düsseldorf. In 1975, the landscape architect
Iwaki Ishiguro and his son Shojiro created the
“Japanischer Garten am Rhein“ in the Düssel-
“D ESIGN THE POND WITH
RESPECT TO ITS
POSITION IN THE LAND,
FOLLOW ITS REQUEST …
THINK OF THE MOUNTAINS
AND WATERS OF LIVING
NATURE AND REFLECT
CONSTANTLY UPON SUCH
SETTINGS.”
31

32
dorf Nordpark covering 5,000 square meters.
A gift from the city’s Japanese community, it
was built using only local or Japanese plants
known to thrive in Europe. It is here that the
philosophy and history of the authentic Japanese
gardening tradition may be found where
nature itself provides not merely the stage but
is instead an active participant and performer.
Or to quote from Zen philosophy: ”Something
long represents the long body of Buddha.
Something short represents the short body of
Buddha.”