Portland Japanese Garden

Japanese Garden Lecture Series

Join us throughout the year for our 2010 Japanese Garden Lecture Series, featuring top experts in the fields of gardening, horticulture, and Japanese garden design and architecture. All lectures will be held in the Garden Pavilion.

Hoichi Kurisu: The Japanese Garden in the 21st Century—An Evolving Art of Healing

Thursday, July 22

5:30pm in the Garden Pavilion

This event is SOLD OUT. Please call (503) 542-0280 with any questions.

“Strolling through a pine forest, viewing rock formations, and cascading waterfalls, pausing to ponder the quiet surface of the lake and shoreline—little by little we are encouraged to lay aside the chaos of a troubled world and gently nurture the capacity within to hear a more harmonious, universal rhythm. We exchange burden, boredom and despair for renewal, inspiration and hope. Or from the joy we already feel, we discover an even greater capacity for good. This is the tremendous power of the Japanese garden.”

Hoichi Kurisu

Former landscape director of the Portland Japanese Garden, Hoichi Kurisu is one of the most respected Japanese garden designers in the world. Owner of Kurisu International, Hoichi was a principal designer of the Morikami Gardens in Florida, the Anderson Japanese Garden in Illinois, and the roof garden on the Contemporaine in Chicago—among many others. Over the last 20 years, his practice has focused on the creation of what we know today as “restorative or healing gardens” at various healthcare facilities throughout the US.

On July 22 (5:30-7:30pm) Mr. Kurisu will present his lecture entitled "The Japanese Garden in the 21st Century—An Evolving Art." Part of the Garden 2010 Japanese Garden Lecture Series, this talk will focus on the continuing evolution in the field of the art of Japanese garden design and construction—an area in which Mr. Kurisu is a master.

According to Garden Curator Sadafumi Uchiyama, "Hoichi Kurisu refers to his Japanese gardens as ‘Gardens of Vision…for Lives of Insight’, an approach that has evolved and been refined over the past thirty years. His efforts are now crystallized into “Restorative Gardens” that all of us are longing for in this chaotic world.”

Mr. Kurisu is responsible for many significant contributions to the beauty of the Portland Japanese Garden, including the superbly executed reconstruction of the waterfall in the Garden’s Lower Pond following major damage suffered in a landslide in the 1990s.

Don't miss this opportunity to hear from one of the Portland Japanese Garden's best known former Garden Directors.

Botond Bognar: Kengo Kuma and the Post-Bubble Architecture in Japan

Thursday, October 21

5:30pm in the Garden Pavilion

$10 for members, $15 for non-members

(Reservations open August 31)

Botond Bognar is an internationally known authority on Japanese architecture. Author of many books on Japanese aesthetics, architecture, and architects, he has recently published a book on the work of renowned Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, who lectured at the Garden in Spring 2009. Bognar is currently Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois.

Professor Bognar's lecture and presentation will outline the rise of Kengo Kuma as one of the most significant architects in Japan after the burst of the bubble in the 1990s. Kuma's work, responding to the overwhelmingly flamboyant architectural adventures of the previous times and to the more limited conditions thereafter, initiated a line of design that is more restrained, simple, and sensitively minimalist. With these features he has established close relations with both the spirit of traditional Japanese architecture and the now-emerging environmental movement in Japan. Kuma's designs explore the experiential qualities of architecture in the most impressive way, using a broad range of materials and (often high-tech) craftsmanship, while still engaging the manifestation of nature.

A booksigning will follow the lecture.