Mizuya- Where Water Purifies You and Your Tea Bowls
Some of you may know the Japanese term Mizuya (水屋), expressed with Chinese characters for “water” and “house”, as a type of Japanese kitchen chests. It is getting popular in New York and other metropolises. Yet did you realize that Mizuya initially had a quite different meaning? Mizuya originally referred to, and still could refer to, a gazebo built over a water […]
Sansui- Mountains and Water in Japanese Gardens
At our talk in April in New York, among a variety of questions we were happy to receive, there was an interesting one that could be called a linguestic question: “What does sansui (山水) mean? Does it mean nature or a garden?” In Japanese, san (山) means a mountain and sui (水) means water. Combined, […]
PED Discussed “Water in Japanese Gardens” at Nichibei Exchange
Takaya Kurimoto of PED presented a lecture on “Water in Japanese Gardens” at Nichibei Exchange in New York on April 28. Water is one of the most important elements in Japanese gardens. Even Japanese dry gardens have imaginary water. Takaya introduced some examples to illustrate the meaning and design of water in Japanese gardens. What […]
Kamo River – Water to divide life and death
In Japan, people think that water sometimes becomes a border to divide two different worlds. Kamo River, which runs through Kyoto City, also used to be thought as the border to separate the world for the living from that for the dead. There was a crematory in the area called Toribeno. This area is located at […]
Garden for Salvation – Cosmology in Japanese Gardens
One of the reasons why people build gardens is to materialize their images of heaven. Good examples are seen in Japanese gardens and other gardens in the world. Historically, since Buddhism has influenced Japanese culture throughout history, the image of heaven in many Japanese gardens is defined by Buddhist cosmology. “Nine Mountains and Eight Oceans” is a part of the cosmology of Buddhism. It […]
