Wednesday, February 29, 2012

RR7

RR7
Oh, to Have a Ryoanji Garden on My Desk

"Perhaps the white field is an ocean and the rocks islands."  (Ching p494)


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  • This innate rock garden is a part of the Ryoanji Temple.
  • This temple derives its name from the Japanese meaning, "The Temple of the Peaceful Dragon." 
  • It is found in northwest Kyoto, Japan.

To this day, it is considered one of the greatest examples of a Zen garden.

  • It currently belongs to Myoshin-ji school of Rinzai branch of Zen Buddhism.
  • This rectangular dry garden has a bed of white gravel that is carefully raked to form East/West running bands.
  • 15 natural stones are clustered in five groups, and the gravel around them is raked in a manner that looks as though it were ripples in a pond

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"The rocks could also stand for a tigress leading her cubs across a river - another common interpretation."  (Ching p494)

  • The exact time and designer of this garden are not known for certain.
  • The temple originally went through its major design stage in 1450 A.D., by Hosokawa Katsumoto who built the Ryoanji Temple.
  • It is believed that his son rebuilt the temple in 1488, after small clan wars, and in the process, created the garden in 1488.
 "Ultimately, the garden is not meant to convey a singular interpretation but to serve as an aid to meditation, with the empty space between the stones just as important as the stones themselves-or perhaps even more so."  (Ching p494)

I have always been fond of these rock gardens and have wondered about their meanings and reasons for their design, but I guess ultimately both questions can be answered in one word : Peace.   How this applies today is one of great importance, and perhaps specifically why I felt the need to study this particular design more intricately, and that is its balance and sustainability.   These rock gardens are eco-friendly, that is, most all of the resources that go into them is sweat equity.   This is very important and will increasingly be so as, water resources continue to dwindle.

*Ching, Frank, Mark Jarzombek, and Vikramaditya Prakash. A Global History of Architecture. 2nd ed. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2011. Print.
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