Completed in 1991, the stone garden at the Canadian Embassy in the Aoyama district of Tokyo is the work of the landscape designer Shunmyo Masuno. A Zen priest, writer and garden theorist, Masuno was eminently qualified to undertake a work aimed at symbolizing the friendship between Canada and Japan.
Constructed across the wide, eastern-facing upper terrace of the embassy, the Canada Garden uses a number of large, irregular stones to evoke the immense landscape and geology of the Canadian Shield. Roughly cut to suggest the ruggedness of the terrain, lines of wedge holes have been left deliberately untouched. The massive weight of the granite stones posed structural problems for the terrace. This was solved by painstakingly hollowing out the rocks. The far end of the garden turns a sharp angle at an inukshuk, a symbolic marker used by the Inuit people of Canada’s Arctic region. Three pyramid-shaped blocks at the nearby northern edge of the garden represent the Rocky Mountains.
Overhanging the main garden and compressing the landscape into a framed panorama is the projecting roof of the embassy. Geometrically precise floor tiles link the main building with the rock arrangement, ensuring that the stark monochrome elements of the garden complement the concrete and glass of the modern building.
A truly modern garden, it also adheres to traditional garden methods. The tree lines of the Takahashi Memorial Gardens to the immediate east and the tree tops of the Akasaka Palace to the north and northeast are incorporated into the garden in the manner of Edo period borrowed scenery.
In accord with the idea of a Canadian geological landscape torn apart by glaciers, Shunmyo Masuno’s stonemason has left the rocks as they were when they split.
A marker stone or inukshuk, a symbol of the Inuit people of the Canadian Arctic, stands at the corner of the garden.
Paving stones, cut rock, loose stone and gravel create a surprising harmony of form.
LEFT AND ABOVE Large slabs of granite were transported onto the reinforced upper-level terrace of the embassy’s fourth floor during the five years it took to complete the garden. Because of their weight, the stones had to be first carefully hollowed out.
Okinawan gardens reflect climatic and horticultural differences, but also disparities in taste and cultural preferences.