The Garden as Architecture

Gardens and their related architecture have always been designed in Japan, China, and Korea as a single, cohesive environment. The particular forms that these environments took over the centuries naturally reflect each country's differing aesthetic principles, but were also governed by other concerns - from religious beliefs and social structure to simple spatial or climatic constraints. In his exploration of the history of garden design in the Far East, Toshiro Inaji offers a fascinating study of changing cultural and aesthetic values. The Garden as Architecture is the first book published in English to focus on the strikingly different interpretations made by these three countries - in their gardens and architecture - of the Buddhist, Confucianist, Taoist, and geomantic principles that have informed their cultures since ancient times. This pioneering study makes clear just how and why the approaches taken by neighboring countries were so different.