Japanese Garden Design by Marc P. Keane

Author:Marc P. Keane [Keane, Marc P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4629-0596-6
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The stepping stones and water laver are elements derived from the tea garden. Kawamichiya Inn, Kyoto

Only the most essential elements remain: lantern, water, and evergreen plant. Tawaraya Inn, Kyoto

THE PHYSICAL SETTING

The tsubo garden was influenced more than any other garden by architecture and the city plan. In the case of Kyoto, the city was initially laid out as a grid with the smallest of the blocks being a chō. The chō was further divided four times north to south and eight east to west to form 32 lots called henushi. By the end of the Heian period, though, much of the original idealistic plan of the city had changed to accommodate the more practical aspects of day-to-day life and so it was with the layout of the chō. Of the 32 henushi, the outer ones that lined the street proved the most viable since a building could be used as a storefront directly accessible to people passing by. The center of the chō devolved into an unbuilt area that was used for communal wells, vegetable plots, and toilets-a convenient if unsanitary combination.3

Until the Edo period, the houses of commoners were crude: simple woven mats for walls and a board or grass roof held down against the wind by a crisscross of bamboo poles weighted at the intersections by rocks. Beginning in the Edo period with advances in construction techniques-and financial resources newly available to the chōnin-a new form of residence was born called machiya, or town house. The merchants built a particular form of machiya which incorporated both shop and residence called omoteya-zukuri (street-front construction). The omoteya style consisted of a one-or two-story structure beside the street, with one or two more units going back on a long thin lot. Taxes levied on frontage (the width of the building facing the street) were, in part, the cause of this deep and narrow architectural design. In its classic form, the front building was for business, and the buildings in the back were for an extended family. Between these separate buildings, small spaces were left open for light and air. Eventually these tiny spaces would be turned into gardens, in the style of the tea garden. The houses of the merchants expressed the same social duality as the kimono-façades were generally simple but they contained hidden "treasures" within.

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