Landscape Gardening in Japan

Written by the noted Victorian architect and first published in 1893, this classic work was instrumental in introducing Japanese landscape gardening to the West. It presents the rules, history, and theories of Japanese landscape gardening from ancient times, lavishly illustrated with line drawings. Under Condor's direction, it is possible to make gardens in the Japanese manner, shown here in all its rich variety, very different to the minimalist Zen gardens that Westerners think of as "the" Japanese form. Ornamental pagodas, rustic wells, lanterns, water features, decorative bridges, arbors, and screens form the backdrop to carefully chosen plants, meticulously described as to variety, attributes, and placement. Conder tells how to combine these elements to construct specialist creations such as the tea garden, hill garden, flat garden, passage garden, water gardens, and fancy gardens. Condor's aim was two-fold: to present a complete account of the art of the Japanese garden of his time, and to show that beneath these Eastern compositions lie fundamental aesthetic principles applicable to the gardens of any country. He succeeds in both brilliantly.