Isuien Garden and Neiraku Museum

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Japanese gardens excavate the good elements from nature and fuse them to create something familiar yet new. The Sakuteiki, a book on Japanese gardens, states that combining various styles according to the pond shapes or land conditions in a garden is the best approach.

Thus, Japanese gardens advocate for the fusion and modification of existing elements when creating a garden. In Japan, rather than leaving nature as it is for viewing, the landscape is arranged and appreciated through the philosophy and technique of reproducing the natural scenery, embedding one's taste in the beautiful landscape sites.

Between Nara Park and Todai-ji in Nara Prefecture, there are two adjacent gardens, Isuien and Yoshikien.

Isuien, preserved since the Meiji period, allows one to experience the Japanese tea garden through the view from the tea house, hiding the landscape of Todai-ji's South Great Gate and three mountains behind the trees within and outside the garden, creating a visual harmony where the garden and the background naturally connect.

Yoshikien, free for foreigners to enter, was once the site of the Kohfukuji temple but became privately owned during the Meiji period. Now it is owned by Nara Prefecture, featuring the current buildings and garden.

Different from the Korean attitude of appreciating the landscape as it is, Japanese gardens exhibit a scene where humans modify the natural to integrate it as part of the garden or its background, indicating that in Japanese gardens, humans are the subjects and nature the object.

Photo, article: Jeong Se-young (@se_0.0)

#Additional information about Isuien

📍Location: 74 Suimoncho, Nara, 630-8208 Japan
📍Admission time: 9:30~16:30
📍Closed: Every Tuesday
📍Admission: 1200 yen (adult), 500 yen (university, high school student), 300 yen (middle school, elementary school student)