Shunmyo Masuno, Japan's leading garden designer, is
at once Japan's most highly acclaimed landscape
architect and an 18th-generation Zen Buddhist priest,
presiding over daily ceremonies at the Kenkoji Temple in
Yokohama. He is celebrated for his unique ability to
blend strikingly contemporary elements with the
traditional design vernacular. He has worked in
ultramodern urban hotels and in some of Japan's most
famous classic gardens. In each project, his work as a
designer is inseparable from his Buddhist practice. Each
becomes a Zen garden, ''a special spiritual place where
the mind dwells.''This beautiful book, illustrated with
more than 400 drawings and color photographs, is the
first complete retrospective of Masuno's work to be
published in English. It presents 37 major gardens
around the world in a wide variety of types and
settings: traditional and contemporary, urban and rural,
public spaces and private residences, and including
temple, office, hotel and campus venues. Masuno achieved
fame for his work in Japan, but he is becoming
increasingly known internationally, and in 2011
completed his first commission in the United States
which is shown here.The book, divided into three
chapters, covers: ''Traditional Zen Gardens,''
''Contemporary Zen Gardens'' and ''Zen Gardens outside
Japan.'' Illustrated with photographs and architectural
plans or sketches, each garden is described and analyzed
by author Mira Locher, herself an architect and a
scholar well versed in Japanese culture.Celebrating the
accomplishments of a major, world-class designer, ''Zen
Gardens'' also serves as something of a master class in
Japanese garden design and appreciation: how to perceive
a Japanese garden, how to understand one, even how to
make one yourself. Like one of Masuno's gardens, the
book can be a place for contemplation and mindful
repose. |
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