By Will Lerner, Communications Manager for Portland Japanese Garden & Japan Institute

In May, Japan Institute and Portland Japanese Garden partnered with the Japan Association for the International Horticultural Expo 2027, Yokohama (GREEN×EXPO 2027) to host its second annual TEIEN FORUM at The University of Tokyo in Japan. This gathering, titled “Japanese Gardens: Why Go Global?”, explored the international significance of Japanese gardens through conversations and presentations featuring some of the world’s most respected thought leaders in the field. This covers highlights from the first half of the forum—the second half can be read here.

Misako Ito, Executive Director of Portland Japanese Garden and Japan Institute’s Japan Office in Tokyo, was one of the leaders who organized this event. “In our first TEIEN FORUM in 2024, the topic was ‘Why Japanese Gardens Now?’” Ito shares. “Since joining this organization, I’ve come to realize that in Japan, Japanese gardens are taken for granted. It is a part of our daily life, so Japanese people don’t realize how much they are appreciated around the world. The first forum in 2024 helped educate Japanese people why these gardens are attracting international attention, especially from younger generations.”

Related: Read about the first TEIEN FORUM held in 2024

“This year we expanded the conversation to explore the successes, challenges, and aspirations of those responsible for building and maintaining Japanese gardens across the world,” Ito continues. “We had representatives based in Germany, Singapore, Australia, the U.S., and Japan who have also worked in several other nations.”

GREEN×EXPO 2027, a co-presenter of the FORUM, is a prestigious event that will open in Yokohama in 2027 and will host representatives from a diverse group of nations will be present to promote and share their horticultural knowledge. Masato Komura, Secretary-General of the Japan Association for the International Horticultural Expo 2027 writes, “We hope that it will provide visitors with opportunities to gain new perspectives on flowers, greenery, agriculture, and food, and inspire them to work to create a world for tomorrow that is sustainable and in harmony with nature.”

The Essential and Enduring Relevance of Japanese Gardens

The afternoon began with remarks from Lisa Christy, Executive Director of Portland Japanese Garden. “Japanese gardens have long been sanctuaries of peace and beauty but they are more than just visually stunning spaces,” Christy remarked. “They are places that invite reflection, foster cultural understanding, and offer the possibility of reconciliation. In a time when the world feels increasingly uncertain and divided, their relevance is not only enduring—it is essential. This is the essence of what we at Portland Japanese Garden call cultural diplomacy, or garden diplomacy. These spaces create opportunities for dialogue, for connection, and for healing across borders, cultures, and even generations.”

Following Christy was Dr. Atsushi Tsuda, Executive Director and Vice President of The University of Tokyo. Tsuda, whose field of study has been devoted to biological oceanography and marine ecology admitted that he was perhaps those less familiar with gardens, but that his participation in the first TEIEN FORUM helped develop an interest in them. “I have the opportunity to travel across Japan,” Tsuda shared. “The  additional knowledge on Japanese gardens [I’ve gained through these gatherings] adds a lot of richness to my traveling experience.”

Exploring the Landscape of Kyoto and How it Interplays with Japanese Gardens

If you tour Portland Japanese Garden, thoughts about the role of water will inevitably come up, whether it’s about features like the Heavenly Falls or its importance in the overall composition of a landscape. Because of their capacity for extraordinary beauty, Japanese gardens may seem elevated beyond earthly concerns such as the availability of water, but as keynote speaker Dr. Shunsaku Miyagi shared, the history of garden building in Japan’s epicenter of the practice is dependent on the resources that have been available.

“The area of Heian-kyo, the prototype of today’s Kyoto, was defined at the end of the eighth century,” Miyagi, a landscape architect and visiting professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, noted. “Surrounded by mountains to the east, west, and north, most of the area is located on mid to low terrace of inland composite alluvial fan developed by several rivers. …From the early to mid-Heian period [the entire period lasted from 794-1185 BCE], many of the residences of influential aristocrats were found in the northeastern part of Heian-kyo, near the Palace, where the land conditions were stable and there was an abundant supply of water.

“From the mid-Heian period, as urban development of Heian-kyo progressed, groundwater resources in shallow aquifer began to deplete. During this period, prominent aristocrats moved into suburban areas in search of land rich in water and began to build garden villas of their own.”

As the samurai class began to supplant the aristocratic one, many gardens began to fade away. In their stead, karesansui (dry landscape gardens) developed by Zen Buddhist temples began to rise in prominence. The Sand and Stone Garden at Portland Japanese Garden is an example of such a space.

“After the Meiji Restoration in the mid-19th century, the environment surrounding gardens of Kyoto changed dramatically,” Miyagi shared. “However, attempts to explore innovative expressions have been continuing until the present time. And, throughout this process, the value of water as an indispensable garden element has remained unchanged and even promoted more and more today.”

Miyagi then gave greater detail about Kyoto’s landscape, noting the tremendous 12 billion tons of rainfall the city sees annually. Following evaporation, nine billion tons of water remains both above and below ground. Because there is only one somewhat narrow outlet for this water, where the Uji, Katsura, and Kizu Rivers converge to become the Yodo River, and the surroundings are impermeable bedrock, a natural dam is created. This results in an underground reservoir that is nearly as large as Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest freshwater lake. Water’s role in the daily lives of Kyoto’s population, then, is maybe more abundantly clear than it is in other communities. “Throughout history, people in Kyoto have made use of its abundant, high-quality groundwater for a variety of livelihoods, traditional industries, arts and crafts,” he noted. “Of course, it goes without saying that many gardens have also heavily relied on abundant groundwater, as well.”

A significant portion of Miyagi’s presentation included his theory on the levels of scale seen in a landscape, noting that the composition of mountains, valley, and water running throughout that make up the entirety of the Kyoto Basin can be perceived on six levels of scale:

• Major: The entire Kyoto Basin
• Major/Meso: More zoomed in, but not quite the “meso” scale that immediately follows. This is seen in Kyoto’s Okaziki District, where the Lake Biwa Canal meets the ridgeline of the East Mountains.
• Meso: Dialing in further, we see this scale with some of the “sub-canals” that branch from the main artery, with the water going into spaces like the temple grounds of Nanzenji, which can be thought of as representing mountains.
• Meso/Minor: Zooming in closer, this step sees something like a water feature within a garden adjacent to the greenery of a garden space. For instance, at Portland Japanese Garden, the stream that runs throughout the Strolling Pond Garden might qualify.
• Minor: One step above the most granular, this can be seen as looking closer at the edge of the stream, with perhaps a fern extending overhead.
• Micro: Miyagi notes at this smallest scale, “You can easily imagine green of trees nestled on the water in a stone basin, wet steppingstones and moss after watering, and water droplets remaining on camellia leaves after a sudden shower of rain.”

Since Japanese gardens themselves are intended to copy the experience of nature, Miyagi’s framework helps provides a more rigorously academic understanding of how landscapes like Portland Japanese Garden and the spaces it contains are actually just scaled down versions of the larger area they are built in. “Since the medieval ages, there has been a custom in Japan to refer to gardens as san-sui,” he offered. “San means mountain or green of the vegetation that covers it, and sui literally means water itself, and the combination of these two words, san-sui, is what a garden is all about.”

Miyagi would conclude his discussion by noting how Kyoto’s engineering of its waterways still has great influence on garden building today. His design firm, engaged in a project in the central part of Kyoto, wound up using a water system constructed in Japan’s Meiji period (1868-1912): the Lake Biwa Canal. Initially built for hydroelectric power and water transportation, it has long since ceased its use of ferrying freight and people through the city. “In order to make effective use of surplus water, a number of garden villas were developed that use this water,” Miyagi noted.

Among those gardens drawing from the Lake Biwa Canal was one that Miyagi and his colleagues have worked on. Developed in the 1920s, the garden had fallen into disrepair in recent years. To help refresh the space, they reactivated a system that drew water from the Lake Biwa Canal as well as the Sakuradanigawa River. “What changed here is the appearance of deciduous trees and the movement of water. What did not change…was a water system network that connected [the landscape to] the Lake Biwa Canal, which has been incorporated into this garden throughout its history. It is the gene of this garden.”

Revitalizing a Japanese Garden in Germany

Dr. Shao-Lan Hertel, Director of the Museum of East Asian Art (Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, or “MOK”) in Cologne, Germany spoke about the work her institution is doing to revitalize a Japanese-style garden in its center. Designed by Nagare Masayuki (1923-2018), MOK’s Japanese garden uses a flowing water system that had been built in its center.

“In 2018, the garden had to be drained completely because the water pipes had become blocked by algae that had formed and subsequently leaked,” Hertel shared. “After the garden was taken out of service, maintenance, including the professional trimming of the various foliage, trees, shrubs, and flowers, was increasingly neglected. The garden is now in an overgrown state that has long since fallen below the standards of traditional Japanese gardening restoration.

“The garden is the restoration of the museum garden was among the first projects I placed on the agenda after I assumed the directorship in July, 2023. And one challenge obviously lies in the lack of specialist gardening expertise outside of Japan handed down over centuries and successive generations, as you know, involving extremely specialized knowledge and extensive experience.”

The challenge of finding those with the requisite skills to build, repair, or maintain Japanese gardens is one that has inspired Portland Japanese Garden in several initiatives, perhaps most notably its Japanese Garden Training Center. Conceived of by Sadafumi Uchiyama, Curator Emeritus, Diane Durston, Curator Emerita, and Steve Bloom, CEO from 2005-2024, the Training Center teaches the traditional skills and techniques for creating and fostering Japanese gardens using a syncretic approach that blends Western and Japanese educational practices. Its hope, under the leadership of its Director, Hugo Torii, is to help any practitioner in any place learn so that the craft of Japanese gardening is vibrant for generations to come.

In the meantime, leaders like Hertel must rely on professional networks. As it turned out, MOK wound up retaining the services of Hugo Torii. Prior to Torii’s role as Director of Grounds Maintenance and now, Garden Curator, at Portland Japanese Garden, he had spent over three years at Peter Berg Landscape Design in Rheinland Pfalz, Germany. Following a site visit by Torii in 2024, the garden will not only be refreshed, but will steer closer to the original vision as laid out by Masayuki in 1977. Soon, visitors will be able to see a more accurate depiction of a Japanese garden. While MOK had the good fortune of being able to find Torii, a highly-regarded gardener who had worked in Germany, this nonetheless underlines the need for institutions like the Training Center, lest this vital form of cultural diplomacy weaken.

“The global significance of this garden is basically that it is in line with the idea of our museum—to have a representative collection and make accessible the arts of East Asia to Western audiences that may not ever have the chance to travel to East Asia themselves,” Hertel concluded.

A Shared History of Reconciliation in Australia

Portland Japanese Garden’s establishment was pursued by a community’s effort to reestablish social ties with Japan following the foreign and domestic tragedies of World War II. More than 60 years later and acknowledging that much more must be done, the Garden has been credited for lessening hostility and bigotry toward those of Japanese ancestry. It is an inspiring and hopeful story and made better knowing that Portland Japanese Garden is not the sole example of the awesome power of garden diplomacy.

Dr. Darren Mitchell, President of the Cowra-Japan Society, followed Hertel and discussed the work of the Cowra Japanese Garden and Cultural Center in Australia. The largest Japanese garden in the southern hemisphere, the Cowra Japanese Garden too is the product of local efforts to find friendship following the devastation of war.

“The relationship between Japan and what is really a small rural town in Australia has its origins in the Second World War, an escape attempt by Japanese soldiers in 1944 from the Cowra Prisoner of War Camp, and the loss of both Australian and Japanese lives resulted,” Mitchell explained. “Although well-known as the site of this breakout, Cowra’s reputation is founded in fact on the aftermath, in the efforts of local citizens to foster reconciliation with a former enemy. In the early post-war period, local returned veterans undertook maintenance of the Japanese graves during the course of looking after the Australian ones. The war cemetery where the breakout dead were buried in 1944 became two distinct cemeteries in 1964 when all wartime Japanese remains from mainland Australia were relocated to Cowra, including prisoners, civilian internees, and those who died as a result of combat. All were reinterred at Cowra where there are now more than 500 graves.

“Over time, a strong mutual respect developed between Japan and the people of Cowra. The garden was established to further recognize and develop this special relationship between Cowra and the people of Japan. And the garden is situated near the breakout site and the cemetery, the garden’s designed providing a deep spiritual connection for Japanese visitors to Cowra who take satisfaction that the spirits of their ancestors lying in the cemetery can find rest in the familiar symbolic surrounds of the garden.”

“When it was first opened in 1978, our deputy prime minister, Doug Anthony, was moved to say wartime bitterness had passed and been replaced by the bonds of friendship,” Mitchell concluded. “The garden commemorates changes in international relations of real importance to the future of mankind. And in addition, [Cowra garden architect Ken] Nakajima himself spoke of how a garden will need to evolve. Inheriting a tradition is not to imitate it, but to cherish it in our minds and acknowledge that time passes and change occurs. And as the challenge not only for us with custodianship in this generation of the Cowra Japanese Garden and Cultural Center, but I believe to each of us as we look not only for the future of mankind in international relations to be one of peace and reconciliation, but to acknowledge how any relationship will also evolve and change over time, and that the garden itself will reflect this evolution.”

Soft Power Through Nature in Singapore

Portland Japanese Garden was founded with diplomacy very much as one of its chief motivations—it is much more difficult for hatred and fear to fester when you have better understanding of a people, the place they come from, and their customs, traditions, values, and culture. The Garden is a successful example of “soft power,” or the use of cultural influence to engender better relations between peoples.

Soft power through gardens was the main point of emphasis for Dr. Yee Kuang Heng, a professor with the Graduate School of Public Policy at The University of Tokyo. “My background is in international security, meaning I study war and defense strategies,” Heng shared. “You might call that hard power. But I think as I thought about how to present today’s talk, I reflected on my career and the different places where I’ve worked. I realized that gardens have soft power aspects that have also been critical alongside my own career.”

Heng would go on to discuss how his native Singapore, often thought of for its captivating skyline, shopping, and cuisine, has made strides to use nature to develop a more nuanced perception of the city state. “This goes all the way back to the early years of independence,” Heng shared. “Our founding Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, was adamant that Singapore should be a garden city, beautiful with flowers and trees and as tidy as it can be. He initiated lots of campaigns in Singapore. In 1963 we see a tree planting campaign. 1967, Mr. Lee unveiled the Garden City Campaign, where he talked about how Singapore should visualize itself as a garden city. In 1971, we saw the start of Tree Planting Day, an annual event.”

The city state is home to Singapore Botanic Gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage Site—the first Asian botanic garden and the only tropical garden to earn such a listing. Heng shared the reasoning behind this concerted effort to prioritize the greening of his home, including that it makes life more pleasant for Singaporeans and that it makes the area more attractive both aesthetically and economically.

“Mr. Lee recalled that it was actually very helpful because when CEOs were coming to Singapore, they were thinking about making investment choices and that one way to impress them was to bring them along [roads that had been the site of greening projects] that were beautiful,” Heng offered. “It would reinforce the message that Singaporeans were competent people that could deliver on the projects that you wanted to invest in.”

Part two covers the second half of the TEIEN FORUM and can be read here.

TEIEN FORUM 2025 Participants

Portland Japanese Garden and Japan Institute are profoundly grateful for the impactful and highly admired thought leaders who joined the organizations’ leadership to host this meaningful and insightful day of conversations and learning. They include, in alphabetical order:

• Dr. Yee Kuang Heng, Professor, Graduate School of Public Policy, The University of Tokyo
• Dr. Shao-Lan Hertel, Director of the Museum of East Asian Art, Cologne, Germany
• Dr. Darren Mitchell, Historian & Cultural Heritage Advisor, Board Director, Cowra Japanese Garden and Cultural Centre, Australia
• Dr. Shunsaku Miyagi, Landscape Architect, Visiting Professor, Harvard University Graduate School of Design (Keynote Speaker)
• Jun Saito, Executive Advisor, Japan Association for the International Horticultural Expo 2027, Yokohama (Closing Remarks)
• Dr. Naoko Shimazu, Professor and Deputy Director, Tokyo College, Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Tokyo (Moderator)
• Dr. Makoto Suzuki, Professor Emeritus, Principal Tokyo University of Agriculture, Green Academy & Member, International Advisory Board of Portland Japanese Garden (Moderator)
• Dr. Christian Tagsold, Professor, Modern Japanese Studies, Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf, Research leader of Euro-Japanese Garden Association
• Dr. Atsushi Tsuda, Executive Director & Vice-President, The University of Tokyo (Welcome Remarks)
• Ryuichi Wakisaka, Executive Director, Japan Association for the International Horticultural Expo 2027, Yokohama

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