Study of Henri Martinet who is Landscape Designer of Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden

Abstract

French landscape architect Henri Martinet (1867-1936) is well known as the landscape designer of Shinjuku Gyoen National Gardens (1906). But there are only few historical records on the planning and design of this garden or his profile in Japan. Through the research in France, we found Martinet was a successor of Edouard Andre (1840-1911) who was the leader of French landscape architects in the late 19th century. He is also well known as the author of the famous text book on French modern landscape design LART DES JARDINS. Martinet learned from Andre and had a design style of style composite that Andre advocated in his book. Based on this evidence and through the case study of analyzing park design of Parc de Beaumont (Pau, 1896) and Parc de la Rhonelle (Valenciennes, 1901), we concluded the style of Shinjuku Gyoen National Gardens should be called composite style. And it is necessary to add Shinjuku Gyoen National Gardens to the list of the most important works of Henri Martinet.