Style and Space of Semi-western Gardens in Modernized Residential Spaces in the Meiji Tokyo

Abstract

In the last several years, an explosion of papers argue about Japanese modern landscape, there are design of residential gardens, policies of park and landscape of resort and so on. This paper clarifies the formation period of semi-western gardens in Tokyo during the Meiji period and its spatial characteristics, particularly Shiba-niwa (lawn garden), by analyzing the trends in western house construction and relationship between building layout and garden design within premises. The result leads to the following hypothesis. The formation period of Shiba-niwa style overlaps with the period of western building construction boom around the mid-Meiji period (1882 - 1902). The concept of Shiba-niwa was to integrate the juxtaposed arrangement of Japanese and western buildings, typical building layout in modern residential spaces, into coherent landscapes with simple combination of spacious lawns and gently meandering paths, that is a remarkable characteristic reflecting the modernization of traditional garden design.