The Japanese Tea Garden - by Marc Peter Keane (Paperback)

About the Book

"Impeccably written, erudite . . . likely to remain the standard work on the subject."--Kyoto Journal

Book Synopsis

Award-winning Japanese landscape architect Marc Peter Keane traces the history and design of tea gardens from T'ang China to present day.

Almost every Japanese garden is influenced by the tea garden. Drawing on his impressive career of garden construction across the United States and Japan, Marc Peter Keane describes the history, design, and aesthetics of tea gardens, from T'ang China to the present day, with over 115 stunning photographs, floor plans, and illustrations. The most extensive book on this genre ever published in English, The Japanese Tea Garden is a rich resource for garden lovers, historians, and landscape architects.

Review Quotes

"When Marc Peter Keane describes, with poetry and erudition, the experience of the Japanese garden today, he has no peer."

--Leonard Koren, author of Wabi-Sabi

"Marc Peter Keane is the undisputed American master of Japanese garden scholars. . . . Since tea gardens have had a major impact on the design of Japanese gardens in general, this book is a necessary addition to the library of any serious student. The rest of us will enter with humility --mindful of the small door through which one must crawl into the tea room--and sip slowly."

--New York Times Sunday Book Review

"Impeccably written, erudite without being burdensomely intellectual, what sets Keane's beautifully measured and considered prose style apart from other garden writers is the carefully created mood of his text, which aspires at times to verbalized contemplation. . . . Likely to remain the standard work on the subject for a very long time to come"

--Stephen Mansfield, Kyoto Journal

"An incredibly beautiful and extremely detailed look at one of the world's most transcendent landscape arts."

--The Avant Gardener (NY)

"For anyone with a serious interest in Japanese gardens this is an essential purchase."

--Graham Hardman, Japanese Garden Society (UK)

"A thoroughly engaging, insightful observer."

--Booklist

About the Author

Marc Peter Keane, a graduate of Cornell University, is an American landscape architect and author. He lived in Kyoto, Japan, for nearly 20 years, and specializes in Japanese garden design. Presently, he maintains a design office in Ithaca, New York.

He is the author of several books about garden design: Japanese Garden Design (an introduction to the culture and design of Japanese gardens); Sakuteiki: Visions of the Japanese Garden (a translation of Japan's oldest gardening text, co-authored with Prof. Jiro Takei), The Art of Setting Stones (a collection of philosophical essays on gardens), and The Japanese Tea Garden (history and aesthetics of Japanese tea gardens).

Keane has worked as a lecturer in the Department of Environmental Design at the Kyoto University of Art and Design and at Cornell University, and is a fellow at the Research Center for Japanese Garden Art, Kyoto, Japan, and the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, New York. He has lectured widely throughout the United States, England, and Japan.

Keane also acted as chairman of Kyoto Mitate International for many years, a non-profit organization that worked to revitalize Kyoto's traditional environments and cultural heritage.