Landscapes for Small Spaces: Japanese Courtyard Gardens

by Katsuhiko Mizuno

Enjoy it for its sheer beauty or use it for inspiration while creating your own small landscape garden.

Japanese gardening is the art of arranging plants, rocks, lanterns, and basins in an open or, as here, an enclosed space. According to the aesthetic principles long prevailing in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, even two rocks arranged in a tiny, enclosed space can be considered a garden. This type of garden is called a tsuboniwa, and...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 4770028741
• ISBN13: 9784770028747
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Kodansha
• Length: 136 Pages
• Weight: 2.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 11.9" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

great book

Typical of publications from Japan, this book has stunning photographs. The text is adequate but leaves you wanting more, still an excellent book if for nothing else but to analize the photographs in detail and make your own conclusions.

Landscapes for Small Spaces: Japanese Courtyard Gardens

This is an excellent resource for persons with some previous familiarity with Japanese landscape design or are in the landscape design field. It is not a "how to" book, rather, it is full of beautiful photographs of actual Japanese courtyard landscapes done in an ancient, classic landscape style. It's a glimpse into gardens in Japan most people will never have an opportunity to visit. In fact, many are in private homes not open to visitors as well as being in small hotels and monasteries. It is a fascinating glimpse into those Japanese homes and shows how they integrate interior spaces to courtyard gardens. It is a good resource for architects looking for ways to integrate spaces for reflection in public or private buildings.

about as good as it gets without being there

This is a beautiful book. I'm giving it 5 stars even though I was actually hoping for a little more reading material and insight - the imagery is wonderful.

Beyond the basics, Japanese Garden Book

I've been through a lot of Japanese gardening books, and many of been a little repetitive, covering the basic design elements and what not. Mizuno has put together a great "Intermediate" read once you've had enough of the basics. The pictures are some of the best available of authentic Japanese gardens, and the captions are short and to the point but with just enough plant identifications to be useful to someone in their planning stage. Perhaps the best feature of this book is the introductory discussion on the "Omoteya style" town home (traditional Japanese merchant class town home). The text suggest there is a conservation movement to this vanishing style of Japanese home that mirrors the affection American's are beginning to culture towards the Bungalow. As the Omoteya styled homes share similar dimensions with the American city lot (diagrams are provided with the text), this book is a fabulous resource to urban dwellers looking to incorporate the Japanese garden concept to their grassy postage stamp.

A book to inspire you

Beautiful pictures and good text. It doesn't contain "how to do" tips but there is a chapter on how the author build one tsuboniwa in a Kyoto house.