Portland Japanese Garden
| Portland Japanese Garden | |
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Japanese Maple in the garden
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| Type | Japanese garden |
| Location | Portland, Oregon, United States |
| Coordinates | 45°31′07″N 122°42′29″W / 45.51872°N 122.7080°WCoordinates: 45°31′07″N 122°42′29″W / 45.51872°N 122.7080°W |
| Area | 5.5 acres (2.2 ha) |
| Opened | 1967 |
| Operated by | Japanese Garden Society of Oregon |
| Visitors | 300,000 |
| Status | Open to the public |
| Collections | Strolling Pond Garden Natural Garden Sand and Stone Garden Flat Garden Tea Garden |
| Budget | $2,980,000 (2010) |
| Website | japanesegarden.com |
The Portland Japanese Garden is a traditional Japanese garden occupying 5.5 acres (22,000 m²), located within Washington Park in the West Hills of Portland, Oregon, United States. It is operated by the Japanese Garden Society of Oregon, a private non-profit corporation, which leased the site from the city in the early 1960s and whose members elect the trustees of the Society. Stephen D. Bloom has been the chief executive officer of the Japanese Garden Society since 2005.
The 5.5 acre Portland Japanese Garden is composed of five sub-gardens. As a Japanese garden, the desired effect is to realize a sense of peace, harmony, and tranquility and to experience the feeling of being a part of nature. The garden has five major sub-gardens, each a different degree of formality:
Three of the essential elements used to create the garden are stone, the "bones" of the landscape; water, the life-giving force; and plants, the tapestry of the four seasons. Japanese garden designers feel that good stone composition is one of the most important elements in creating a well-designed garden. Secondary elements include pagodas, stone lanterns, water basins, arbors, and bridges. Japanese gardens are asymmetrical in design and reflect nature in idealized form. Traditionally, human scale is maintained throughout so that one always feels part of the environment and not overpowered by it.
The Garden Pavilion was built in 1980 in Japanese style by local builders: it has a tiled roof, wooden verandas, and Shōji sliding doors. It is the center of several Japanese cultural festivals, art exhibitions, and other events. The west veranda faces the Flat Garden, and the east veranda overlooks downtown Portland and Mount Hood, which resembles Mount Fuji. Dozens of stone lanterns are present throughout the garden. The lower entrance features a 100-year-old temple gate, a 1976 gift of the Japanese Ancestral Society of Oregon.
The garden was designed by Professor Takuma Tono. The garden was dedicated and design began in 1963; the garden opened to the public in 1967. In a study conducted in 2004 by the Journal of Japanese Gardening, it was ranked second out of 300 public Japanese gardens outside Japan for highest quality. The Japanese ambassador to the U.S., Nobuo Matsunaga, said "I believe this garden to be the most authentic Japanese garden, including those in Japan." This is notable because a traditional Japanese garden normally takes hundreds of years to evolve and mature, but the Portland Japanese Garden evolved much more quickly—a fusion of hurried western style and stately eastern expression.
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Wikipedia