Perception of Spacein Japanese Gardens

Abstract

We human beings have no ecological environment of our own as other species do, so, to exist and to survive, have made up our environment, a universe culturally molded. Nature or objective world (what it is in itself) is never known to man, man knows only its cultural interpretation. The art reveals the perceptual world of the culture to which it belongs. Architecture and garden describe, in a sense, the structure of space of the culture. European gardens (except English landscape garden) is a construction with a symbolic center, mathematically composed. Space is perceived visually, and from a single point. Japanese gardens are landscape gardens. The spatial experience is multisensory, and in Kaiyu-siki (go-round style) gardens, kinesthetic exprience is added. The kaiyu-siki garden is a sign for pilgrimage or itinerancy, Japanese favorite tour to perceive the space or the country. Another Japanese garden, miniature garden, also stands for the world.