What is a Contemporary Garden?

One of the key aesthetic of the Western (now deemed “international”) idea of the garden is the use of plants in a painterly way, making scenes in groupings like a classical Western landscape painting. Think of the typical English garden borders or even the contemporary blended swathes by Piet Oudolf. This somewhat contrasts with the classical Japanese or Chinese hand-scroll tradition of landscape painting, where plants and trees can be individually appreciated, each articulated with ink brushstrokes. They are further spaced apart — the idea of “ma” or the space inbetween things. The composition of branches and shapes leaves can be more deeply appreciated. In the traditional Japanese tea garden, plants with their disposition of branches, rocks, and objects are carefully orchestrated as a series of continuously changing vignettes along the garden path to aesthetically-spiritually prepare the participant before the ceremony.

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For the garden of the Oiso Longhouse, plants will be arranged as individual entities spaced a little apart, amongst sub-architecture: timber frames, screens, pavings, platforms, and seating; the "ten thousand things". With their different characters — shapes and size of leaves, and composition of branches — these relate to each other in different ways. As they grow in size or decay, these relationships will change. Between them, unintended vegetation or “weeds” will be kept or removed, edited as befits our subjective propensity. This is our idea of the contemporary garden for this part of the world.