The first profound depiction of the great reformer of Japanese garden design in the twentieth century

Mirei Shigemori decisively shaped the development of Japanese landscape architecture in the twentieth century. He founded the Kyoto Garden Society in 1932 and published the 26-volume Illustrated Book on the History of the Japanese Garden in 1938. One year later he designed his own first masterwork, the garden of the main hall of Tôfuku-ji Temple. Between then and his death in 1975, he went on to design 240 gardens throughout Japan. Among the most famous are the Tenrai-an tea garden (1969) and the Matsuo Taisha garden (1975). All of his gardens are distinguished by the fact that they honor tradition while at the same time - through their openness to Western modernity - they free themselves from its weight and develop a language of their own. The first part of the book will deal with Shigemori's life and influences, including his interest in ikebana and tea ceremonies. The second part will offer detailed presentations of some seventeen different gardens.

Mirei Shigemori prägte maßgeblich die Entwicklung der japanischen Landschaftsarchitektur im 20. Jahrhundert. Seit den 1920er Jahren tätig, gründete er 1932 die Kyotoer Gartengesellschaft und publizierte 1938 das 26-bändige Werk Illustrated Book on the History of the Japanese Garden.Ein Jahr späterentwarf er sein erstes eigenes Meisterwerk, den Garten bei der Haupthalle des Tôfuku-ji Tempels. Von da an gestaltete er 240 Gärten in ganz Japan bis zu seinem Tod 1975; zu den berühmtesten gehören der Teegarten Tenrai-an (1969) und der Matsuo Taisha-Garten (1975). Kennzeichen seiner Gärten ist, dass sie die Tradition ehren und sich zugleich - in der Öffnung gegenüber den Einflüssen der westlichen Moderne - von dem Althergebrachten durch eine eigene Sprache lösen.

Der erste Teil des Buches wird sich mit dem Leben Shigemoris und den Einflüssen auf sein Werk auseinandersetzen. Dabei wird auch seine Auseinandersetzung mit Ikebana und Teezeremonien eine Rolle spielen. Der zweite Teil wirdetwa 17 Gärten ausführlich darstellen.

Christian Tschumi is principal and project manager at Metron Landschaft AG, Brugg, Switzerland and teaches at the Institute of Landscape Architecture at ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)Zurich, Switzerland. He grew up in Zurich and became a licensed landscape gardener in 1988. Tschumi received his first degree in landscape architecture from the Hochschule Rapperswil in 1993. After starting his own landscape architecture practice in 1995, he was also invited as a visiting lecturer to the Fachhochschule Anhalt in Bernburg, Germany. In 1997 he pursued a master s degree in landscape architecture at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, and later worked at Peter Walker and Partners in Berkeley. In April 2000 he moved to Kyoto, Japan, and started research on the modernization of the Japanese garden. Christian Tschumi was a fellow at Dumbarton Oaks in 2004/05.