Shinagawa Historical Museum Commentary Sheet

Variegated Green - Shinagawa Historical Museum -

The Shinagawa Historical Museum features a fully landscaped with a lawn at the center, two flowing water features that evoke a mountain stream, the Shotekian tea

house and garden on the east side, and a pond and restored pit-dwelling on the west side. The garden offers a beautiful collection of trees and flowers that dazzle for each of the four seasons, including plum, Oshimazakura cherry, Satozakura cherry, dogwood, Japanese black pine, maples, Japanese ternstroemia, mountain

Landscape of the garden fire, and Japanese camellia, to name a few, providing a calm and tranquil setting. The pond is filled with coloured carp, and on days with good weather the garden is abuzz with small birds. On rainy days the garden is still and tranquil, while snowy days provide a completely different scene. Exploring the garden during the changing seasons helps visitors to forget about the hustle and bustle of

Tokyo. The mossy tea house garden and Shotekian tea house shrouded in trees appear to be from a different time and world. The garden is in complete harmony with Japanese Shotekian (tea house) architectural design aesthetics and represents just another hidden charm that the Shinagawa Historical Museum has to offer.

The Aesthetic Values of Edo – The Distinctive Sound of the Suikinkutsu

Since ancient times, the people of Japan have enjoyed the sound of temple bells resonating from far away and found joy with the sound of the wind blowing through pine forests. This unique aesthetic value of purely observing small effects and resonating sounds shows that the Japanese people of the past had very delicate and subtle senses. These values are also what led to the creation of the suikinkutsu – a Japanese garden ornament and music device.

A suikinkutsu is a small covered cave that is dug near a garden’s stone wash basin. Water drips in from a small intake and then falls in droplets from top to bottom of the cave, making a sound that resonates against the walls, which then can faintly be heard above ground. This is one technique for enhancing the aesthetic taste of a Japanese garden and it is considered a crowning achievement of Japanese landscaping techniques.

The suikinkutsu is said to have been first used in the Edo period. The original suikinkutsu was made in the middle of the Edo period during the creation of the Ozaki Garden, located in Hawai Town, Tottori Prefecture. Today it is designated as a place of scenic beauty by the national government, and can be found in front of the garden’s wash basin just off the path. Suikinkutsu became popular in the Meiji period, but little by little this fad faded, and currently very few original works remain anywhere in Japan.

The garden at the Shingawa Historical Museum features a suikinkutsu. Looking from above, there is a small opening at the bottom of the wash basin surrounded by small rocks to conceal what is beneath. Most of the water that enters the wash basin is just washed away, but the opening is made so that just a small amount can pass through. This water drips inside the small cave dug underground. The faint sound produced from these water droplets can still be heard today. However the authentic sound of the water as enjoyed by the people of the Edo period tends to be overpowered by traffic noise today. Therefore, inside the museum, patrons will find a replica suikinkutsu with a tape recording that reproduces the same sound and also shows the internal structure for all to see. Structure of Suikinkutsu

Suikinkutsu