A
local treasure has been spiffed up for an important birthday, and what a
celebration it has been.
The
Japanese Garden at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical
Gardens has undergone a $6.8 million renovation over the past year and has just
reopened this past week in time for its centennial.
Railroad
magnate and real estate developer Henry E. Huntington created this 9-acre garden
as part of his San Marino estate from 1911 to 1912. James Folsom, director of the botanical
gardens, says this garden has been an enduring favorite of visitors to the
estate since the public gained access to the estate grounds in 1928. I heard a fascinating talk by Folsom at a
Huntington event co-sponsored by USC, one of “about 30” talks Folsom said he
has given this past year about the garden and its renovation as the Huntington
has ramped up to last week’s unveiling.
There’s
so much to tell. There’s the garden as
an example of the interest in “exotic environments,” in vogue in the late 1800s
and early 1900s. There’s the question of
what is “authentic” and “traditional” about gardens evoking landscapes from
other places and how that has influenced additions and evolutions in the
garden’s design. That part of the
discussion resonated, as I don’t love
what has seemed “touristy” about it.
There’s
the toll which time, economics, and politics have taken on this and other
Huntington gardens through the Depression and World War II. During and after the war, the garden lost the
moniker “Japanese” and became the “Oriental garden.” A push in the late 1950s led to its restoration
and re-opening in the 1960s, when we were in the “It’s a Small World” mindset.
The
part that interests me the most, though, is the garden’s connection to the
local Japanese American community. For
many years, I have known from my dear friend Veda that her grandfather,
Toichiro Kawai, was the master carpenter responsible for dissembling what is
now known as “the Japanese house” in Japan and reassembling it on the estate
after it was shipped from Japan. He also
built the bell tower and famous moon bridge.
In his talk, Folsom explained as part of this renovation, he had the red
paint removed from the moon bridge in order for it to blend in better, to
prevent it from “eating up your eye” in the garden. I’m with Folsom on this one.
Another
JA connection I’ve been following in the local media over the past couple of
years contributes to what Folsom calls the “destiny” of the garden. For more than 40 years, the Pasadena Buddhist
Temple has had on its grounds the Uransenke teahouse, used by temple members to
conduct and teach tea ceremony. I was
vaguely aware of its presence the times we were there for their obon festival, but didn’t know anything
about it. To develop ideas and prepare
plans for the Huntington Japanese garden renovation, Folsom and a team of
consultants, including Kyoto-based architect and craftsman Yoshiaki Nakamura,
visited the temple and its teahouse four years ago. The moment Nakamura saw the teahouse, he knew
that it was his father who had built it.
His father constructed it in Kyoto in 1964 and reassembled here is
Pasadena.
In
2010, the temple membership decided that donating the teahouse to the
Huntington was the best way to preserve it and keep it in use as it was
intended for posterity. Once again, the
teahouse was dissembled, but this time to be shipped back to Kyoto, restored,
shipped back here, and reassembled. Nakamura
led the team, guided by his father’s original plans for the teahouse.
The
teahouse now resides in a new ¾-acre tea garden, part of what Folsom calls “the
new vision” for the Japanese Garden. Already
I like this part of the garden better, although the plantings are all so
new. I will return to see this part of
the garden mature and settle in. I was
glad to see so much interest in the garden and its history. O
tanjobi omedeto gozaimasu!
