Developing a New Kind of Archives on Japanese Gardens

In the course of its evolution, Japanese gardens gave rise to various styles. Natural stones and plants were arranged to create water streams, ponds and mounds. They were pieces with which to create an ideal landscape.

Even though artificial as any other built environment, gardens in Japan put special emphasis on being “natural.” Partly for this reason, the end of a Japanese garden’s construction does not signify its completion. 

Japanese gardens, some say, take at least 100 years to complete. The moment of their construction merely marks the beginning of a long process of maturation over time.

The Garden Archives Project combines modern technologies and the practical knowledge accumulated at its home institution, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, in its study and development of novel archives on Japanese gardens. 

Jōei-ji is a historic temple with close ties to the Ōuchi and Mōri clans, the warlords who governed the region. According to one legend, its garden was designed by Sesshū, the celebrated 15th century ink painter.

Murin-an was built by former Prime Minister of Japan Yamagata Aritomo (1838–1922) as a villa. Gardener Ogawa Jihei VII (1860–1933) designed and constructed the garden, an epitome of modern Japanese garden.

Built in 1502, Ryōgen-in’s garden is a masterpiece of karesansui [dry or rock garden] that represents a body of water without using actual water. 

We have begun our work by 3D-scanning the two Gardens.

The resulting scans provide the basis for our archives.

In addition, we have used DNA metabarcoding to analyze samples from the sites’ soil and the water in the pond to incorporate the microscopic dimension. The analysis allows us to collect information on organisms including microbes that are currently living in the past.

In parallel with these efforts to digitize the information present in the sites, we have interviewed specialists in various fields, such as caretakers of both Jōei-ji and Murin-an Gardens and a mineralogist, directly on the ground.

The archives we are developing will map the variety of data thus obtained onto the 3D scans of the sites. A multi-layered system, which synthesizes diverse elements extracted from the Gardens, is being published online in stages.

One can gaze at and listen to a garden absentmindedly. It is a place where one can walk around with no particular purpose. The archives we are working toward, too, will be more than a simple collection of information, something that can itself be experienced “like a garden.”