Die Lehre des Gartens

English edition available

This book places Japanese gardens into broader contexts: the arts, sciences, political history, cultural and social change, religions. The teachings of a garden are expressed in the recurring attempt to establish harmony—harmony between nature and art, the real and the spiritual world, past and present. This book does not idealize the garden as an object of aesthetic or spiritual contemplation but is a social compendium that presents an order underlying a certain society. The Viennese art historian and cultural scientist Carola Platzek has talked to gardeners and garden historians, a sound scientist as well as a Buddhist and a Shinto priest about their work with traditional and modern concepts that shape Japanese design.