Thaisa Way, Associate Professor Landscape Architecture, College of Built Environments, University of Washington
In 1986 Richard Haag's sequence of four gardens at Bloedel Reserve was honored by the American Society of Landscape Architects President's Award for Design Excellence. The Garden of Planes, the first in the sequence, was described by jury members as "a Buddhist statement of unenlightened humanity's alienation from nature." The Japanese influence on the landscape as a whole was grounded in Haag's extensive experience in Japan and Prentice Bloedel's appreciation for Japanese aesthetics. Just as the award was made public, so was the destruction of the Garden of Planes by the stewards. It was replaced with a Japanese style stone and sand garden, according to the director, so as to be more in keeping with the Japanese tea house and pond garden. The Reserve's stewards chose to replace Haag's garden with one that they believed was more recognizably Japanese. What was unrecognizable about the first garden? What is it that the stewards were looking for in a Japanese inspired landscape? What was lost in the new translation of Japanese aesthetics? In another Seattle neighborhood, Fujitora Kubota, the designer of Bloedel's Japanese Pond Garden, developed a drive-through nursery, Kubota Garden, where clients might view Japanese-inspired vignettes as if in a catalog. The garden served a nursery business marketing a particular "look" or style, one that appeared Japanese to the public and yet seemed to fit well within the region. Now a public park owned and maintained by the city of Seattle, it is widely-recognized for its Japanese character, however, its stewards refer to it as an American - Japanese landscape. This distinction is not semantic but reflects Kubota's experimentation and play with traditional design principles as he sought to create a Pacific Northwest style of garden design. The two gardens - Bloedel Reserves, specifically the Garden of Planes, and Kubota Gardens - suggest there is an investigation of Japanese aesthetics in the Pacific Northwest that remains unacknowledged and unexplored. This paper challenges what we understand to be Japanese landscapes by suggesting that while descriptions of influence have been simply reduced to a list of characteristic elements - maple trees, lanterns, bridges, and stone-work - Japanese aesthetics have been more widely explored by designers. The Garden of Planes and Kubota Garden suggest a broader understanding of Japanese aesthetics as translated in the Pacific Northwest landscape. Thus it is not the issue of authenticity per se but rather the argument that historians should develop a deeper analysis of design trends than a stylistic label might imply. It may be less important to discuss whether a garden is authentically Japanese than to consider how it engages regional cultures and ecologies.
