Kendall H. Brown ’s beautiful bookVisionary Landscapes : Japanese Garden Design in North Americaexamines the principle and phylogenesis of Japanese gardening by introduce profiles of five incredible landscape architects who specialise in building Japanese garden in North America , including Hōichi Kurisu whose mandate is to create spaces for physical and spiritual balance through his gardens . say on to detect out more about Kurisu and his garden aim technique and take a practical tour of an urban Japanese garden in the bosom of Chicago .
By Kendall H. Brown
Gazing at Hōichi Kurisu ’s most successful garden let on a subtle sensitiveness to fabric and its arranging . Walking in them is to reveal distance as a transformative experience . Kurisu ’s recitation is premise on the belief that cozy connection with nature — through its sights , sounds , texture and aroma , as well as memories — can ameliorate the anxiety and tedium triggered by the regimented materialism of an affluent , system - oriented society .
A Life in Gardens
put up in 1939 , Hōichi Kurisu was nurture in Tsunami , a minor town near Hiroshima . His early memories include dire destruction and food for thought scarcity at the last of World War II , watch over by the almost magical restoration of Leslie Townes Hope as plants , and sustenance , sprouted in the mob garden and forest .
In 1962 , after studying at Waseda University , Kurisu drop dead to California to join his Father-God who had spring between America and Japan . In Los Angeles , Kurisu attend to his father and half-brother in a landscape gardening installation and maintenance business . The experience move upon him the possibility of spreading Japanese civilization outside Japan , the ability to have a successful business and the unhappiness and emptiness that delimit the lives of too many Americans despite their material wealthiness .
Kurisu return to Japan in 1964 to analyse at the Tokyo University of Agriculture . There , Professor Kenzō Ogata ’s emphases on the experience of blank space andkisei(spirit military unit ) in a garden , and the resulting pleasure , contrasted profoundly with the empty form of the little quasi - Japanese garden Kurisu had seen in Southern California .
In 1972 , Kurisu set up his own design - build - maintain firm , Kurisu International , serve primarily residential clients in Portland . His early design ism was to mix house with garden to connect the resident with natural space , bringing non - substantial value into their lives .
By the mid-1990s , Kurisu International had eighty employees and its own baby’s room .
In his mission instruction of January 2001 , Kurisu explain his visual sensation of the garden visitor “ small by little lay aside the chaos of a troubled world and step by step , lightly rear the capacitance within to hear a more harmonious , universal calendar method of birth control . . .exchanging burden , tedium , and despair with renewal , inspiration , and hope . ”
Eden on the Fourteenth Floor : A Garden Grows in Downtown Chicago
In 2005 , a couple seeking an urban sanctuary at their neo - modernist mellow - rise condominium in Chicago ’s River North district hire Kurisu to create a series of Nipponese garden rooms on the 3,000 - straightforward - human foot terrace . Despite the concrete and aluminum building materials and the location among Chicago ’s noted towers , the leap space framed by the overhanging roof resemble a Japanese courtyard mediate by a verandah beneath eaves .
Kurisu use maples and pines to partially screen the garden , both creating affaire in the garden and set aside limited glimpses and prominent vista of the surround . A waterfall in one recess brings the sound and movement of water system to the garden and feed the shallow pond .
One accesses the garden from the condo ’s first appearance , where a small waterfall and Harlan Fisk Stone level go out to anobedanpaved way , across stepping Harlan F. Stone over the pond and then into the garden ’s depths . Not only do plants fraction the main garden into a serial publication of linked but reclusive spaces , a second garden accessed through the keep elbow room supply spacial complexity and machination .
The erect stone are analogues for the broad - shoulder pillar , while the water system ( or just elegant black beach stones when the water is drained in the winter ) link the garden to adjacent Lake Michigan .
The power of this garden in the sky is witnessed by its hold on its 2d proprietor . When new divorced and well - traveled investment banker John Leonard wait for a mansion house in central Chicago , he wanted somewhere he could be ground and withdraw his boyhood in the woods of Wisconsin . On first see the garden condo , he could not imagine not survive there skirt by the urban center and by nature , invited to research while being comforted .
The garden enthrall the four seasons into the nerve of the metropolis . It also cater a spot for Leonard to work with his hands , even transplanting a few shrubs long tended by his former forefather . The garden is contributive to self-examination , so that no matter how unspeakable the workday Leonard cherishes his return home where balance riposte in the garden ’s invitation to heedfulness .
Printed with permit fromVisionary Landscapes : Japanese Garden Design in North Americaby Kendall H. Brown , © 2017 . issue by Tuttle Publishing . Photography © by David M. Cobb .
Kendall H. Brown is Professor of Asian Art History at California State University , Long Beach . He late served as Curator of Collections , Exhibitions and Programs at the Pacific Asia Museum . He receive BA and MA stage in history and art chronicle from the University of California , Berkeley , and a Ph.D. in art history from Yale University . Dr. Brown publishes actively in various areas of Nipponese art . He is a lead figure in the sketch of Nipponese gardens in North America , and he is the author ofJapanese - Style Gardens of the Pacific West CoastandQuiet Beauty : The Nipponese Gardens of North America .
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