May 25, 2012 - Design Intent

A family pauses at a bench above the water and the representation of a boat launch and below a stone lantern at the Japanese Garden in Seattle's Washington Park Arboretum.   The stone lantern, a fixture in any Japanese Garden, began finding their way into the gardens in the 16th century.  Originally, they had been used to line the paths at Buddhist temples.  The lanterns had five primary components that aligned with Buddhist cosmology - chi (earth), sui (water), ka (fire), fu (air) and ku (spirit or void).  Here coins lay in the opening where the flame (ka) would be lit.

The Japanese Garden was designed by Kiyoshi Inoshita and Juki Iida and overseen by Tatsuo Moriwaki of Tokyo Metro Parks.  It is a stroll-through garden of the formal type that one would find in Japan in the late 16th and early 17th century.  Incorporated into the 3 1/2 acre garden are some 580 granite rocks and boulders from Snoqualmie Pass hand selected by Juki Iida. 

Kiyoshi Inoshita describes his design intent :

"The flow of water, which originated at the high mountain ranges, transforms itself as it continues its way through the landscape; first it turns into a waterfall, then into a stream, washing the bank by a tea hut, and finally becomes a lake. At the lakeshore are a variety of features such as a rock promontory, an inlet, and steep slopes, through which water continues its way, until it reaches a village (an image of the village symbolically represented by a cherry grove, iris paddies, and a moon viewing hill). At the village, there appears an island connected to the shore by two different bridges. At the end of the lake is a stone paved boat launch, which symbolically represent a fishing village. There, the water disappears from one’s sight, leaving the expectation that it will be joining the greater ocean."