Product Description

Mirei Shigemori (1896 - 1975), a garden maker and scholar, who was trained in painting, flower arranging and the tea ceremony, is increasingly admired for his contemporary designs, the result of his life's objective to restore the evolution of the Japanese garden.

Believing that the Japanese dry landscape garden (or Zen garden) had fallen into cliche, Shigemori applied modernist shapes, colors, and materials to create stunning avant-garde works that also celebrated the ancient gods and rituals at the heart of Japanese culture.

This book explores ten major Shigemori works -- from the checker-board garden of Tofukuji (1939) and the "Hidden Christian" dry landscape at Zuiho-in (1961) to the masterful stone settings at Matsuo Taisha (1975) -- using design/cultural analysis, garden plans, and photographs.