Welcome. My name is Marisa Rodriguez and I’m the NAJGA manager. NAJGA, or the North American Japanese Garden Association, is an organization that’s dedicated to connecting and supporting the Japanese garden community. Today it is my distinct pleasure to launch the first webinar in our 14-part series titled 130 years of public japanese gardens. Thanks to support provided by the Japan Foundation, this series inspired by dr kendall brown’s book quiet beauty will focus on the history and development of japanese gardens in the U.S.
During today’s session, Dr Kendall Brown and Dr Makoto Suzuki will join us to kick off the series. I will now introduce Dr Brown and he will later introduce Dr Suzuki. Dr Brown is Professor of Asian Art History at California State University Long Beach.
He publishes actively in several areas of Japanese art as well as on Japanese style gardens in North America. He has also curated exhibitions for several American museums exploring topics from modern wood block prints and art deco to lacquer maker’s tools.
He was also a co-founder and past president of NAJGA and served on our board from 2012 to 2017.
Welcome Dr Brown. Thank you Marisa. I’m not really lecturing today; I am introducing uh both my old and dear friend uh Suzuki Makoto Makoto Suzuki and
uh this uh series and um when marisa
and called me a few months ago about can we do something uh japan foundation wants to help us and
we’re so grateful to japan foundation who started nazga with initial funding uh 10 years ago and
is helping us again in so many ways last year and this year uh but we we have this this funding for a lecture series
and maurice has suggested that we we sort of take my uh quiet beauty book
with wonderful photos by david cobb and um use that as a kind of a springboard
to have people from public gardens across north america and and beyond as
you’ll see speak about their history of their garden and as a garden historian and i would uh i’m sure professor suzuki
agrees that this is a wonderful step forward where japanese gardens uh
have uh have a history as simply as that and why history is so important is
some years ago when i was a undergraduate i saw a quote it was either buckminster fuller or isamu noguchi the famous japanese american
sculptor and and garden maker and they said to shoot the arrow forward
first you must pull the bonus string back and as a historian i found this always
resonant if you’ve heard me lecture before you’ve heard me say it no doubt is to to you know know to go forward
with confidence and accuracy uh it really is depending on knowing where we’ve been so this is what over the next
uh well the next three months we’re going to meet every thursday so i had to give up
my bowling league to do this but oh well um so uh the issue is you know why
japanese gardens history in the future how do they come together right what’s the trajectory of that arrow japanese
gardens i think like all major art forms uh connect to universal values
uh as human landscape most basically as humans where it’s in our dna to respond
to certain kinds of landscape so there’s a universal art in japanese
gardens but there’s also no question that gardens were built i guess metaphorically and physically rooted in
the historical moments of their creation however
unlike other art forms where the artist signs it you know it’s finished the building is built and there is that plaque uh the
year it was built on it gardens are living things they evolve hopefully for the better and as uh we’ve
heard at several of our last conferences by professors amazaki and kato from kyoto this idea of soft creation that the
gardens in the act of gardening uh that’s their fostering they’re always
changing so gardens i think maybe uniquely amongst art forms uh have this ability
to evolve and change and of course unlike other art forms like the paintings and wood block prints that i
spend most of my time writing about gardens are actively used we nurture them they nurture what nurture us so
most basically what this webinar series seeks to do is discover what do we learn from the
history of japanese gardens to move us into the future and how do we learn from
them um so in with that in mind the
series is as marisa organized it um is is based on the chapters of the quiet
beauty book where i was inspired in fact by makoto suzuki’s three-part periodization of japanese garden history
outside japan starting with the and he’ll tell us more about this today the uh kind of or era
the late 19th and early 20th century so next week we’re gonna have a lecture on that by bob carr and this is really
setting the tone for the whole series a history of a garden and how has the history informed where it is now and
where it’s going to be going at least in the near future and then we’ll uh for the next number of
days weeks rather we’ll have uh a number of speakers from gardens uh so it’ll be
like three two three four speakers per week starting on march 4th with other
historic we often call them centennial gardens 100 years old and of course they have long histories of evolution we then
move to the post-war this is what i called in the quiet beauty book building bridges friendship gardens that come
into play in the 1950s and 60s so we’ll have several speakers on that then we
move into a kind of more creative adaptation in the 60s uh innovation by
adaptation we’ll look at fort worth cheekwood gardens in the center of the u.s and then we’re going to have just a
single day presentation at what by sarah fumiotiyama of the portland japanese garden one of the rare gardens that had
an original master plan and then kept evolving master plans uh after that our next and i i should
point out way back i skipped over it these various groupings are by no means absolute this is just a sort of
expedient device um what buddhists would call it upaya sort of a means to get the conversation
started these are not pigeon holes obviously these gardens as evolving living things have many uh multiple
identities so you know the the circumstances or the group the period in which they were
created is by no means a uh eternal limitation on them
just a kind of way to get our conversation and start to to realize this japanese gardens outside japan we
have our own histories as indeed japanese gardens in japan are they at oh are they early edo are they mudomachi or
whatever so we have our own sense of history we have uh designers uh koichi
koan who before his death in about 1990 built great botanic gardens japanese
gardens huge ones great in scale and often in quality as well across north america so curators from those gardens
in denver chicago and the missouri botanic garden in saint louis will speak about what it means to evolve a kawana
garden we then look at gardens built at the millennium the 1990s and early 2000s
with our own set of kind of issues and identities and then uh tim gruner and myself will talk about the the evolving
history of the anderson japanese garden a garden that evolved with no master plan uh so kind of the antithesis of the
of the portland model and then we’re going to look at new gardens gardens in transitions gardens just being built uh
and we’ll have a panel on discussing the impact of japanese gardens in north america then we’ll move to the sort of
penultimate section which is going outside the us uh looking at japanese style gardens in canada and then a first
for us and marisa has really been instrumental in in this part of nashville’s evolution japanese gardens
in central and south america and latin america um and then uh professor suzuki and i will
get together in the middle of may for the very last week 14.
so i want to just briefly say here at the beginning uh that although
that structure that i just took us through is one way to sort of look at the history of japanese gardens in north
america there’s many other ways things that grow japanese gardens often started as plant
collections there’s a newspaper clip and i think this was a like an ap across america this article was sent out i’m
just i found the copy in the plymouth indiana newspaper 1851 talking about
gardeners of japan gardeners and their plants and the gardening skill
so plant collections plant collectors gardening and horticulture is certainly
a key part of japanese garden history japanese and professor suzuki will talk
about this in a few minutes at world’s fairs and the way the japanese government presents japanese gardens in
america and referring to their history you know so i for this is sort of the appropriation of
japan’s own past and the japanese government does it and sort of authorizes it so gardens also is
political spaces that when you’re visiting a japanese garden in america for much of the last 150 years there’s
the idea that you’re experiencing japan to some degree um japanese gardens became and professor
suzuki will again take us deeply into this in a few minutes so popular at world’s fair is that
commercial tea gardens grew up across the country atlantic city right on the boardwalk if you’ve played monopoly
there really should be a japanese garden property to own there was a six acre japanese garden there by the great
kushibiki yumindo uh actually called yumato here but you mean a more common um reading of his
given name and uh i don’t know what happened to this but i did find a newspaper article from 1899. that was
the year that the white where they were redoing the white house the uh the west wing and there was even an idea to put a
japanese garden at the white house it obviously didn’t come to fruition but alexander graham bell telephone inventor
uh wants to establish a japanese garden in washington as a model garden because as he said and everybody knew by the
turn of the last century in landscape gardening there’s no question that the japanese lead the world he also said
they led the world in the method of rowing maybe he was not quite i don’t know about japanese drawing maybe that
too but certainly he was prophetic in talking about guardians uh we could also
look at japanese gardens private gardens but also civic uh gardens as
status symbols as things that the owners were proud to own and thus to show off
and just because we’re in the pandemic era in fact i have one shot of fights or vaccine in my body as we speak uh i
point out charles feitzer jr heir of the fights air fortune built a
huge four acre japanese garden in his home in bernardsville new jersey in 1908. you can go onto youtube and watch
the 1915 mary pickford version of madame butterfly the whole movie is filmed in
this garden it was that big the interiors and the exterior shots in the movie version chocho-san madam butterfly
commits suicide by drowning herself in the pond so watch that online anyway we could
also look at japanese gardens in terms of people not just the people who built the well the people who built them and
and enjoyed them so uh women uh there’s a gender a big gendered history of
japanese gardens in america most of the major residential gardens majority i’d say 60 were built by female patrons we
could call them matrons i showed you an example of mildred wendell wickersham uh and she
hired a female garden designer mary j who built several japanese style gardens so japanese gardens is sort of feminine
places and female spaces or we could look at a kind of ethnic
interpretation of japanese gardens i think it’s quite obvious that for japanese immigrants japanese americans
issei nisei some sons say the japanese gardens were a means of employment sometimes they didn’t have a lot of
other options doors were closed in their faces so it wasn’t always fully voluntary but it also became a kind of a
symbol of identity uh obviously japanese at least on the coasts dominate the nursery industry san gabriel nursery in
southern california domoto nursery in the bay area and in addition to people like uh
taro otsuka who have whole careers building japanese gardens in north america japanese americans often use the
gardens for commemorative things this is the la nisei week princesses in 1939 two
years before most of them would be interned um uh or incarcerated in camps
uh posing for the nisei week festival on a bridge um in central los angeles
uh moving uh more to the post-war period japanese gardens or institutional symbols for
cities for arboreta for cultural institutions my own university cal state long beach has a japanese garden five of
the of the 21 cal state university campuses have japanese gardens of one sort or another
and the sense of this really is becomes part of a american institutional experience here is
brooklyn in 1915 inviting mr and mrs john q public to their japanese
garden in in brooklyn new york all right so there is just some
some of the variety of different perspectives now for um
uh which is to introduce our speaker today who is professor makoto suzuki who
will take us on a thoughtful journey through the changing styles and changing conceptions of japanese gardens in north
america over the past 130 years his journey ends in our contemporary age a
period where he himself has been an instrumental figure in the transformation of the field serving as a
respected historian a supportive advisor an insightful colleague and often a good
friend for japanese gardens globally and uh his book japanese gardens outside
japan from 2007 published by the japanese institute of landscape architecture which he’s the chief editor
is a wonderful example of that work that he’s done in 2000 i was on sabbatical in tokyo and
one of my goals was to meet professor suzuki alas he too was on sabbatical in
berkeley uh and so i did not uh get to meet him but i did uh go over to tokyo
university of agriculture and pick up his um dissertation published
uh on western attitudes towards japanese gardens in the 20 years since that first
time we did not meet i’m delighted to say that we’ve met many times on both sides of the pacific ocean in fact just
a year and a half ago last time i traveled internationally uh professor suzuki and i spent a fascinating morning
visiting shinto shrines and gardens in tokyo’s shitamachi kind of old downtown area and said goodbye after an uh
wonderful lunch and then the next morning i was taking some friends to the koishikawa korakuen garden in central
tokyo and there was makoto suzuki lecturing to a group of senior citizens
professor suzuki has been a long time friend and an important supporter of nashville he spoke at the 2009 long
beach conference where nazca was conceived he organized an important early meeting with japanese garden
industry leaders in tokyo during nazca’s sort of early birth and then he lectured or had one of
his many former students lecture at all four of the nazca conferences
in march 2020 just a year ago next month professor suzuki retired from tokyo
university of agriculture the influential school where he studied and as an undergraduate and graduate and
then taught for over three decades nazca had hoped to honor him in march last year at a dinner during nazga’s
planned trip to tokyo and kyoto for north american public japanese garden personnel who had not been to japan
professor suzuki was instrumental in organizing that that japan foundation supported study treat which alas has
been postponed but we hope to do next uh in the fall or maybe spring afterwards
when the pandemic is over which might be around the time this 14-week lecture series ends we hope to join professor
suzuki again in tokyo i hope so to do that very much and certainly professor suzuki seems now like a familiar and
valued part of the japanese garden scenery so i think in closing there is
no one more appropriate than professor makoto suzuki to launch this historic webinar series and there’s no better
start to it than professor suzuki to give us a summary of his 30 years of studying
japanese gardens outside japan marisa will now
show the video that professor suzuki has made for us the japanese think about japanese
gardens outside of japan because i am not a native speaker of
english i will not talk much but i will show you my ideas in text and the images by this
i’m showing you today’s topics here there are four parts
the longest part is the second which is about the history of japanese gardens outside of japan
titled changes in non-japanese people’s perspectives of japanese gardens
and i will mention what is the japanese garden culture that foreign people
first a question i request all of you think of five words you associated with
japanese gardens nihonten
any words you imagine when you think of japanese gardens
this is the answer i got 25 years ago with stannis quiet green peaceful calm
natural serene japanese pond pine stone rocks
moss cap kala sangsui bamboo this is the difference of the view of
japanese gardens between japanese and non-japanese people
this is the memorial healing garden in the oregon state depend intentionally
designed by horizon the garden was constructed by cooperation with those
people living here there is nothing like this garden in japan it is called the memorial healing
garden it is an authentic japanese garden or something
else americans and the people worldwide have a view of this garden which could be
considered the most recent perspective on japanese gardens however
i would like to begin by discussing what came prior to this
changes in non-japanese people’s perspectives of japanese gardens
overseas record of japanese gardens can be found in the
momoyama period of japanese history in the latter half of the 16th century
the first mention can be found in the history of japan by louis voice
portuguese which is a record of the author’s experiences in japan
during the time of other novu naga and toyotomi hideyoshi
the images of gardens at that time here you see
but since then through the edge period japan was isolated for long periods
then in the latter half of the 16th century many european americans once again
visited japan this marked the beginning of a new age
during which japanese gardens were widely discussed outside of japan
japanese garden abroad from the end of the 16th century
to the early 20th century in europe and america there was a wave
of interest in japan that persisted until the 20th century
known as japanese attributed to japanese culture
cultural and historical items being displayed at international expositions
particularly the authentic japanese garden that was
on display at the vienna international exposition of
1873 captured their hearts of numerous
visitors as it did the many works of arts and crafts
vienna 1873 the first japanese garden outside of japan opened to the public
japanese gardens of exposition in the 19th century japanese guardians became a part of
every subsection expo including the 1876 expo in philadelphia
chicago expo in 1893 and every paris expo
hierarchy expo 1876 the first one in the usa
chicago expo in 1893 ho odam palace
chicago expo the japanese garden located in the center of the white city
japanese gardens outside of japan in the world exposition in the 19th century
attracted a tremendous amount of people
by 1940 20 japanese guardians were officially
exhibited at the world exposition sites including 11
11 garden displays in the united states naturally owing to the impetus provided
by the expositions many more japanese gardens were constructed at the locations worldwide
other than exposition sites such as part of the garden surroundings
fragrant mansions as well as portions of parks and botanical gardens
japanese gardens at the site of expos seattle in 1909
san francisco and san diego in 1915
introducing japanese gardens through printed materials
additionally beginning from around the end of the 19th century
when international travel became possible the non-japanese
who visited japan wrote books that included illustrations of japanese
gardens and consequently people began constructing japanese style
gardens in europe and america based on these illustrations
inspired by the introduction of japanese culture that became available overseas
the number of foreigners who visited japan increased
edward moss’s japanese homes and their salah woundings
american josiah conducts landscape gardening in
and the frolence to canes the flowers and gardens of japan
japanese gardens enjoyed a period of high tender popularity around the town of the
20th century these foreigners imported the elements
of japanese homes and furnishings and garden materials into their own
countries they also brought japanese carpenters and their gardeners to their
countries to build japanese style gardens around their homes
thus japanese gardens enjoyed a period of high
tend popularity around the town of the 20th
japanese gardens part of japonism throughout the course of the history of
art the influence of japanese arts and crafts on europe and america is known as
japonism and the japanese gardens were integral to this small movement
this immense popularity of japan japan during the early 20th century spawned
the creation of several japanese gardens in europe and america
thanks to the popularity of all things japan the number of public japanese
gardens constructed as amusement parks and as part of the displays within
public parks botanical gardens also included during this period
japanese tiga day in atlantic city was an amusement park
as well the ones in luna park new york
san diego’s one and philadelphia’s husband it’s one example of a private garden
along with the many items of japanese arts and crafts and architecture that
went abroad during this period gardens that included elements of
japanese gardens were constructed these foreign constructed gardens decorated
with observed objects that seemed strange to japanese people
could be referred to as cosplay japanese gardens
they were perceived in the same way young people’s current fashion outside of japan
influenced by the popularity of japanese anime is perceived
all the postcards of cosplay
cosplaying in one of cosplay japanese garden
one in massachusetts cosplay japanese garden
the fashion of japanese guardians
japanese gardens abroad in the latter half part of the 20th century
the construction of japanese guardians abroad experienced a temporary rule
during the period of the world war however in the latter half of the 20th century
after peace had been established in response to requests
japanese public institutions such as the national government and local
governments started donating japanese gardens to foreign countries
this renewed the popularity of creation creating japanese gardens in foreign
cultural halls museums botanical gardens
japanese gardens created abroad as a part of japanese traditional culture
it was an age during which the traditional culture of japan including
the tea ceremony flower arrangement martial arts
and chen was being actively introduced to the world
additionally it was an age that spanned the postwar reconstruction period to
appeal to period of high economic clothes during which
many japanese people ventured abroad owing to this
japanese garden construction witnessed the boom in the late 1950s
since then it has continued
japanese house and garden at moma in new york
seattle japanese garden was created in 1960
nitaway garden in ubc vancouver canada
portland japanese garden in 1963
japanese friendship garden at kelly park in san jose
flower arrangement judo martial arts and then
had a kind of popularity in the united states
one of the characteristics of this period was that japanese gardens were composed using
items of japanese gardening they were constructed with an
understanding of the unique qualities of japanese life and culture
thus this was the age of japanese gardens equipped to be used for japanese
cultural activities it was an age during which there was an
increase in japanese gardens that i’m that authenticity
japanese gardens abroad at the end of the 20th century an epoch making international expo
liverpool garden festival held in 1984
the japanese garden that was displayed there won the first prize
the international garden and greenery expedition held in osaka japan
in 1990 as a result of the many displays
provided to this exposition from overseas entrance
examples of japanese gardens continued to be displayed by the japanese government at international garden
expeditions the netherlands
and turkey the latest one was in beijing in
in addition to expose since the 1990s
a variety of other types of events spurred the increasing popularity of
japanese gardens outside of japan i am showing some events here in
1994 that’s my dissertation
and the last low 1999 professor kendall brown published
japanese style gardens of the pacific west coast
even in the 21st century events that further promote the japanese
thereafter many events were held that sustained
a widespread interest in japanese gardens in 2002
professor jill braggad completed her dissertation on japanese
gardens in the british isos this work was taken up in japanese
newspaper articles and became a popular topics of discussion in japan
the youth at the spring of 2007 an exhibition entitled japanese gardens
was held at the national geographic society headquarters in washington dc
and in the same year an exhibition entitled landscaping america beyond the japanese
garden was held at the japanese american national museum in los angeles
breakthrough events in japanese gardens outside of japan in japan and
the united states in the early 21st century in japan
the japanese institute of landscape architecture published its
report on japan’s gardens outside of japan in 2006 in japanese edition and
2007 in english edition in the united states
the 2009 international conference on japanese gardens outside japan
which was held by california state university long beach
as a result of this conference the north american japanese garden
association was founded in 2011.
the academic report on japanese gardens outside of japan
international conference in japanese garden outside japan 2009
this is the history of naga on its home page
current interest of foreigners for japan in recent years
japanese food and culture gained immense global popularity in 2013
the washoe the traditional cuisine of the japanese
was listed by the unesco as an intangible cultural heritage
in 2018 the the annual number of foreigners who
visited japan exceeded 30 million containing the japanese garden
boom the interest of foreigners has shifted from a narrow focus on japanese
culture to broader interest in the japanese lifestyle and everyday objects
sushi sashimi manga anime japanese style clothing wafuku
and satoyama and other examples modern japanese life
rooted in traditional gained increased attention
japanese gardens as an international style of modern gardening
the view of japan’s garden held by foreigners and the attendant
taste for japanese seems to have begun with a tendency towards all things japanese
and has ended up with an understanding of japanese thinking
i alive that this conclusion based on interactions with non-japanese scholars
and fans of japanese gardens i also believe that this trend is
becoming more widespread japanese garden outside of japan
which have undergone a variety of changes and practical applications
may be on their way to becoming an international style of modern gardening
as observed in the example of garden at the oregon state peninsulary
the age of re-evaluating foreigners view of the japanese garden
culture thus we seem to be in an age wherein the
japanese need to learn from foreign people who create japanese gardens more
typical of japan than those created by the japanese
or at least learn from non-japanese people who prostrate the concept of
authenticity in japanese gardens it is an age
in which people worldwide are re-evaluating their view of the japanese
garden culture what is the japanese garden culture that foreigners
continue to pursue when preparing my dissertation
the image and the view of japanese guardians in the minds of westerners a quarter of a century ago
i pointed out that in general the age during which it was impossible
for westerners to understand the japanese guardians has persisted for a long time
however there has been a stunning shift in the
view over the last 50 years this is the most likely because of
easily accessible information in real time on the internet and globalization
japanese gardens spread all over the world outside japan
over 500 public japan’s gardens have been constructed
and over 300 books on japanese gardening have already been published in european
languages japanese garden outside of japan or
related the publications on japanese gardening continue to rise in number
this provost in the intense global interest
in traditional japanese gardens movements on learning on the japanese
garden culture in their own country recent years
witnessed many cases of activities designed to
allow participants to chance to learn about japanese gardening
culture using japanese gardens in their own countries
the naziga not only created a network of public japan’s gardens in north america
it holds events in north america designed to teach people about japanese gardens
and its culture and also i am that entering into a
cooperative agreement intended for further development with
the japanese garden society uk the academic society of japan japanese
gardens japan and the garden society of japan
in 2017 the international japanese garden
training center was opened at the portland japanese garden
the center began hosting a variety of seminars and workshops
place to learn about japanese garden culture skills and the heart
have been established outside japan in the same year
2017 academic works on the history of japanese guardians in europe
and the modern history of japanese gardens were published by
non-japanese people in european languages in english
conclusion the gardens of japan are constructed
sceneries that mimic the natural environment found in japan
if this is so the view that foreign people have of japanese
gardens can also be applied to their view of nature in
japan yes indeed some of those from other countries love
the natural environment of japan and do significant work
in their own field in japan such as traditional literature
environmental conservation gardenings and architecture we have learned a lot from
it is also of great interest that the subtitle of a
2020 video entitled japan’s cichlid water garden
increasing number of non-japanese these days who are active in the world of japanese
gardening and turn their intense gaze toward japanese people and the environment
there is a need to consider and use the relationships between japanese gardens
and nature gardens that provide comfort and co-exist
with nature and the relationship between japanese
gardens of foreign countries and the natural world including people
that exist in those countries
thank you for listening [Music]
