Japanese Garden Design

by Marc Peter Keane, Haruso Ohashi (Photographer), Haruzo Ohashi (Photographer)

The Japanese garden designer, like the poet, creates a theater for the wind to speak, and asks only that we listen. This book presents the essential concepts that garden designers have employed through the centuries and the knowledge necessary to create these living sculptures, these sacred spaces, these ethereal and graceful gardens of Japan.

Genres: Japan, Gardening, Nonfiction, Design, Japanese Literature, Architecture, Horticulture

200 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 1996

Reviews

[Kendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like other readers, I was surprised by the amount of history in this book, and ultimately, impressed. It wasn't quite what I was looking for (I picked it up looking for garden design ideas), but the illustrations and photographs are lovely and the historical and philosophical background deeply comprehensive. I'll likely pick up Keane's "Japanese Garden Notes: a Visual Guide to Elements and Design" for more straightforward garden inspo.

[Will G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the book if you're looking for tons of Japanese Garden images or if you want to just enjoy a light treatise on the subject. I was looking for those and even in the chapters, I already sensed that I probably won't find it here.

But what you will get from this book, that is, if you stick to it until the end, is a new sense, a deeper sense of understanding (and for me, appreciation) of what makes a garden a Japanese Garden, and it's not what you currently think, probably.

I can sense the passion for the subject from the way the author narrated the chapters, taking us deep into the history, concepts, ideologies, symbolisms that translate into what we commonly know as a Japanese Garden. And even though at times it can be a bit involved and dry, in the end, the nuggets of new knowledge that I got from this book is worth the time I spent with it.

Also, I am a sketcher, and I love the sketches of garden scenes in this book.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as lavishly illustrated as I would like, but I did like the focus on history, starting with Japan's geology (!). I learned a lot about Japanese history in this actually, though the connection to the various stages of development of the Japanese garden is already getting a bit muddled in my memory. As mentioned, I would have really liked more pictures. Good for background knowledge, but not necessarily for inspiration.

(Actually, for the above I would have given 5*, but my e-book version borrowed from the library had a bunch of OCR errors. Mostly this was okay but there were some in the Japanese words that would have been hard for anyone without a grasp of Japanese to pick up. I also hated that some of the text was embedded in pictures when they could have been their own separate section in the main text. They were incredibly hard to read.)

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice overview of the history of gardening in Japan as well as the principles, practices and elements of Japanese style . Not a hands-on guide but helpful in understanding the evolution of the unique Eastern feel of garden spaces.

[Christopherseelie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I balked at so much historical context when I first perused the contents, but when I actually read the book I found the historical context to be the most engaging chapters.

[Karen Holt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical and design details on Japanese gardens. Excellent for considering how to design and appreciating existing gardens.

[Richard T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great fundamentals of Japanese garden design. Wish there were more colour photos

[Cbphoenix · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is well researched and goes into detail about the history of how Japanese gardens started. Be aware, it is not focused on helping you design a Japanese garden for yourself, though that is covered briefly at the end.

[Rexcrisanto Delson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for serious Japanese garden enthusiasts. Marc does a wonderful job harmonizing history and the gardens as we know of them today.

[Trudy]

Only on p.12 but the history of gardens is fascinating. Never finished really. Wish I could delete