ABSTRACT
Since at least the time of Frank Lloyd Wright, Japanese architecture and the Japanese integration of buildings with their surroundings have fascinated modern architects and designers. Although the Japanese term for ‘nature’ considered as a whole, shizen, was taken from the Chinese language (about fifteen hundred years ago),1 and many of the themes, motifs, and concepts used in garden design were also adapted from China,2
Japanese gardens are utterly unique in techniques, principles and effects.3 Yet this uniqueness does not limit their appeal in any way-it arouses the deepest responses in people all over the world, as the proliferation of Japanese gardens in North America indicates.4
