Mirei
Shigemori: Modernizing the Japanese Garden
by Christian Tschumi; photographs by Markuz
Wernli Saito
Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley, CA, 2005
128 pp., illus. 75+ col. Paper, $18.95
ISBN: 1-8880656-94-5.
Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher
Saginaw Valley State University, University
Center MI 48710 USA.
mosher@svsu.edu
Often called a "Zen garden", the meditative
and aesthetically designed landscape is
a Japanese specialty. Mirei Shegemori
(1896-1975) worked in this media from
the late 1930s until his death at age
79. Shegemori was a modernist working
in a traditional media, and the book details
his evolution in approaching landscape
architecture as art. He was distinguished
by his use of materials and of shapes
upon the ground and appropriate allusions
to the gardens site and history.
He lovingly placed aged and weathered
chunks of rock, beds of crushed rock,
moss and verdant plantings. Sometimes
his choices, such as wavy curb-like forms
in concrete (now cracking like a suburban
strip malls curbs), seem odd to
a Westerner. One gardens walkway
is a glistening pudding full of smooth
black pebbles in a windy shape upon the
ground, almost too precious to walk upon.
Shigemoris 1939 Tofuku-ji gardens
form a processional and directional design
but include stone-and-moss checkerboards
that dissolve or are truncated by vegetation.
These are juxtaposed with jagged, natural
stones arranged like the Big Dipper constellation.
A 1969 design was originally intended
for Kyotos Association of Kimono
Manufacturers and makes use of a traditional
kimono decoration for the shape of its
watery pond. For his hometown Kayo-cho,
he designed a teahouse garden with ocean
waves and sand banks in red and white
concrete. The 1972 Sekizo-ji temple garden
features stone assemblages that represent
gods (dragon, phoenix, tiger and tortoise)
protecting the site from four heavenly
directions. The colors of stone in each
quadrant are chosen for their association
with each god, and the bamboo fence bears
Chinese characters in the temples
name. Other gardens employ the shapes
of castle fortifications, a bulbous gourd
associated with the temples founder,
and a grid to represent solemnity of Buddhist
practice. Stones are placed to create
a turtle-shaped mountain or form a hidden
cross to allude to the seventeenth century
suppression of Christianity in Japan.
Merei Shegemori clearly deserved this
well-designed book. Besides a timeline
and glossary, there are helpful diagrams
and maps, for often the overhead view
is necessary to understand the complexity
of whats going on in Shigemoris
plan. Author Christian Tschumi is a practicing
landscape architect who appreciates this
masters work with a trained eye.
Markus Wernli Saitos attentive photographs
are often focused on beautiful, salient
details of the gardens. The book is an
inspiration to homeowners and prompts
us to imaginatively reconsider and rethink
our own landscaping plans.