Zen Garden Design. Shunmyo Masuno
view onto a corner of the garden, reminding and reconnecting the visitor to the natural beauty just outisde the walls.
The winding stream of pea gravel narrows and broadens as it moves between the moss-covered banks of the garden, while boulders jutting into the stream create gentle ripples in the flowing “water.”
From the entrance to the gallery, the main part of the garden is hidden behind tall trees. While the interior of the gallery is very inward-focused to emphasize the art, several strategically placed windows allow views into the garden. Just inside the gallery entrance, a large opening looks back over the garden toward the house—a framed vista of layers of trees growing from a mossy mound dotted with ferns and landscape rocks. Further into the gallery, a low window, located just above floor level, gives an unexpected glimpse into the garden.
From the main house, a wood engawa, or veranda, zigzags along the perimeter of the building and mediates between the architecture and the garden. Masuno located a second chōzubachi right next to the engawa, giving the owner easy access to it. This chōzubachi serves multiple purposes. In addition to allowing for purification before entering the garden, the water running into the chōzubachi from the bamboo spout provides a calming backdrop of sound to the garden. Additionally, Masuno placed the chōzubachi atop a suikinkutsu, an unusual feature found in some gardens—an earthen jar buried in the ground that makes a pleasant tinkling sound when water drips into it. Pouring water scooped from the chōzubachi onto the rocks at its base, allows the water to run through the rocks and down into the buried ceramic jar. This produces the lovely soft chime-like tones of the suikinkutsu, creating a melodic and soothing soundscape for the garden.
From the wood engawa, or veranda, of the residence, the view looks out toward the southeastern corner with majestic mountain-like scenery enhanced by the borrowed scenery of the tall trees existing adjacent to the garden.
When seated on the tatami mat floors inside the main house, the traditional structure, with its exposed wood columns and beams, along with sliding paper-covered lattice shoji screens, creates framed views of the garden.
For night-time viewing from inside the residence during the colder months and from the engawa veranda during warmer weather, Shunmyo Masuno incorporated hidden spotlights within the garden to focus the view on specific garden elements.
From the chōzubachi, an undulating expanse of white shirakawa suna pea gravel moves through the garden, flowing under the engawa, between mossy knolls, and in raked ripples around landscape stones. Passing between the main house and the gallery, the river of gravel provides a strong sense of movement and leads the eye around the corner to hidden areas of the garden.
This part of the garden is meant to be viewed while sitting on the engawa or the tatami mat floors of the interior rooms. Masuno composed several different areas of the garden to suggest different kinds of scenery. Multiple species of tall trees and bushes juxtapose the wall of the gallery building and provide a backdrop for the mossy knoll. Another tōrō stone lantern sits under a plum tree, in a prominent position within the garden. With its late winter blossoms, lush summer foliage, and leafless winter branches, the plum tree clearly represents the changes of the season, while the lantern always remains the same.
Following the flow of the gravel river, Masuno added landscape rocks embedded in the lush moss. The rocks push out into the river, creating gently rippled waves. Masuno made use of the existing trees behind the garden as shakkei, or “borrowed scenery,” and at the far end of the garden, he composed the rocks, plants, shrubs, and trees in a richly layered composition. Creating a feeling of being deep in the mountains, with its sense of yūgen, or “mysterious profundity,” this view of the garden is calming and tranquil. Yet, it holds a mysterious tension with the depth of the thick greenery contrasting with the bright whiteness of the pea gravel river. The design of the garden produces an occasion for the viewer to smell the scent of the trees, hear the sound of the suikinkutsu amid the birdsong, and watch the light filter through the trees to create ever-changing shadows. This is the moment of coming face to face with the essential self—the moment of understanding one’s clarity of spirit for which the Chōshintei garden is named.
Water flows from a bamboo spout into the stone chōzubachi basin set atop a buried earthen jar, or suikinkutsu. Constructed to emit a soft tinkling sound when water is poured onto the stones at the base of the chōzubachi, the sound of the suikinkutsu captures the attention of the viewer.
Earthen mounds covered with moss and backed with trees and shrubs create a feeling of spacious mountain topography while providing a buffer between the residence and the gallery building.
DESIGN PRINCIPLE
BORROWED SCENERY 借景 shakkei
Utilizing scenery from outside the bounds of the garden as an element of the garden composition is the concept of shakkei. Examples from Japanese gardens include incorporating views of distant mountains or adjacent temple roofs. The use of shakkei connects the viewer to the world beyond the garden while still immersing them in the garden. The effective use of shakkei often includes a hedge or wall that separates the foreground and sets off the outside scenery.
帰穏庭
KIONTEI
Private Residence Tangshan, China, 2016
A few simple and powerful landscape rocks in the small garden by the central main entrance on the west side of the residence contrast with the richly composed garden of paths, ponds, hills, and waterfalls on the south and east sides of the house.
To balance the strong presence of the Western-style house, Shunmyo Masuno sculpted tall landscape rocks and set them within the Japanese garden. Here, Masuno left the drill marks from the quarrying process on the columnar rock and added a carved circle to show the mark of the hand of man on the natural material.
FROM ITS START AS A COAL MINING TOWN, the city of Tangshan in Hebei Province grew to be one of the largest heavy-industry centers in China. In 1976, a powerful earthquake hit the city, causing great loss of life and catastrophic devastation of the built environment. The post-disaster reconstruction of Tangshan included a complete reorganization of the city. Today, the thriving city has a busy port and reinvigorated industry and is China’s leading producer of steel.
When Shunmyo Masuno visited the property, located in a new residential area surrounded by housing towers rising over twenty stories high, he found the unlikely site for the Japanese-style garden to be challenging. The L-shaped garden abuts a large European-style residence featuring classical elements, including a formal entry with grand columns and a pediment. The original garden included a waterfall that had been designed based on the image of a Japanese-style waterfall, which gave the owner the idea to have the whole garden redesigned using more Japanese elements. When Masuno received the commission, he was not certain how to meld the Japanese aspect of the garden with the formal Western-style architecture, and he worried about the views of the surrounding high-rise buildings.