Zen Gardens. Mira Locher
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The guesthouse building sits on the north edge of the T-shaped site, with a gravel court on the east side in front of the entry and the main garden stepping uphill from the building on the south side.
Located in the mountain resort area of Hakone, the Ginrinsō garden is designed with the site and the specific visitors in mind. The garden complements a guesthouse for the company from which the garden gets its name—a company that originally made its money from herring fishing. The guest-house, planned for workers who typically go for a relaxing weekend stay, has a design reminiscent of a traditional sukiya-style inn, which spreads across the top (the north side) of the T-shaped site. The garden wraps the perimeter of the site but mostly extends out to the south, along the stem of the T.
The primary views of the main area of the garden are visible from the guest-rooms and the common spaces. Traditional tatami-matted guestrooms offer framed scenes of the expansive lawn leading to a pond, which is backed by a hill featuring a tall two-tiered waterfall. The hill emphasizes the vertical dimension of the garden and also gives the suggestion of something beyond.
The garden path starts from the curved bridge at the edge of the pond near the guesthouse and climbs through the garden to the top of the waterfall for a view back to the guesthouse and the mountains beyond.
Subtle nighttime lighting enhances the colors and forms of the main elements of the garden, creating views different from those seen during the day.
The garden visible from the bathing spaces features a cylindrical stone chōzubachi (water basin) and a single maple tree in front of an arrangement of rocks and shrubs with trees behind.
Sturdy rock retaining walls contain the garden and border the gravel-covered approach and entry court of the Ginrinsō guesthouse.
Carefully composed for balanced views when seen from both the interior of the guesthouse and while walking through it, the garden offers a variety of experiences—both for the eyes and the mind.
Stepping-stones lead from the guesthouse out to the garden, where the visitor can traverse the lawn and then cross the pond on a gently curving bridge. From the pond, a gravel path climbs up and continues behind the hill. It winds through dense masses of clipped azaleas and loops through a heavily wooded section of the garden, reminiscent of a mountain trail. The path continues to the top of the hill—the starting point for the ten-meter-high waterfall, where views unfold back to the guesthouse and the mountains beyond. The path provides varied scenes and moments of discovery, from the quiet solitude of a secluded mountain trail to a moment of pause on the bridge, observing the colorful ornamental carp in the pond and listening to the water splashing off the rocks in the waterfall.
With its tall height and continuous sound, the stepped waterfall is a focal point in the garden and also draws the viewer’s eye into the high depths of the garden.
Tucked into the northwest corner of the site, a smaller garden designed to be viewed from the baths is much more enclosed and private, separated from the main garden by a wall. It features rough rocks set into a hill and interspersed with plants, as well as a stone chōzubachi (wash basin), reached by stepping-stones leading through the pea gravel surface in the foreground. Low mounds, green with ground cover and interposed within the pea gravel, form the base of the rocky hill. A few special trees, chosen for their form and seasonal color, are strategically placed on the hill for visual emphasis and focus.
As visitors generally arrive on a Friday evening and depart on a Sunday, the main area of the Ginrinsō garden incorporates subtle lighting for nighttime viewing. Concealed in hedges and behind rocks, the lighting apparatus is imperceptible during the day. At night, it illuminates specific trees and objects, like the curving bridge and the stone lantern positioned at the edge of the pond between the bridge and the waterfall. The lighting pattern is varied during the two nights of a visitor’s stay, allowing the pleasure of discovering different ways to see and experience the garden.
The gently arched bridge connects the lawn adjacent to the guesthouse to the meandering path, which steps up the hillside through the hedges and into the densely planted trees.
Tiled terraces and long roof eaves extend the interior space of the reception buildings into the garden, while the pond and islands of the garden move under the terraces to bring nature inside.
京都府公館の庭
KYOTO PREFECTURAL
RECEPTION HALL
KYOTO, 1988
The teahouse nestles into a high corner of the garden, with the pond at the opposite lower corner adjacent to the reception hall.
The Kyoto Prefectural Reception Hall is an oasis hidden in the middle of the city of Kyoto. The building houses two main functions: a multi-purpose hall open to the public, which allows only a glimpse into the surprising natural scenery of the garden, and a formal reception room used to entertain dignitaries visiting from abroad, which opens out to the lush welcoming greenery. Designed with layers of spaces ascending a gentle hillside and defined by the varied heights of shrubs and trees, the garden appears much larger than its actual size.
A terrace faced with a grid of stone tiles extends from the reception hall out toward the garden. A gentle expanse of grass and water, bounded on one side by a wing of the L-shaped building and edged with rounded bushes and leaf-filled trees, greets the visitor in a welcoming gesture of openness and abundance. Although the sharp geometry of the terrace contrasts the gentle character of the garden, it has a strong spatial and physical connection to the garden. At one end the pond slips underneath the stone platform, while at the two locations where doors open from the hall onto the terrace, textured stepping-stones break into the gridded stone surface and lead into the garden.
Designed both to be observed from inside the hall and while following the paths that lead through it, the garden offers a variety of multi-sensory experiences. Two primary focal points—a waterfall at one side of the garden and a teahouse at the other—are nestled within the lush trees. The traditional design of the teahouse contrasts the reception hall building, giving foreign visitors a glimpse into Japan’s history. Water cascades over the falls into the stream meandering down the hillside, guided by rough stone borders and edged with azalea bushes and other greenery, providing a soothing backdrop of natural sounds. The paths lead through the layers of the garden, first across the open expanse of the slightly rolling grass-covered lawn and then among the layers of rock and shrub groupings, past the stream and waterfall to the teahouse waiting bench and the teahouse itself. At certain points along the path, the garden is designed for glimpses back to the reception hall, creating a continuous experience of changing yet familiar views.
Glimpses of the teahouse, with its entrance gate set off to one side, are visible across the lawn in the foreground and beyond the hedges and trees in the middle ground of the garden.
The rough textures and varied shapes of the stepping-stones contrast with the grid of the tiled terrace and bring the garden space under