• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.45-53
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• 2013

The purpose of this thesis is to identify the gardening method of Mus${\bar{o}}$ Soseki by looking into his works. Through this research, life and religious values of Soseki were studied, which gave a better understanding of the garden architect as an individual and seeker of religious truth. Among his works, the most widely known-four ponds, Eiho-ji, Erin-ji, Saiho-ji and Tenryu-ji were studied. The research found that based on the Zen of Buddhism, Soseki symbolized various philosophical ideas into space structures. In addition, through two gardening components, stone buildings and tributaries, he specifically materialized related themes. An absolute religious aesthetics of the creator could be found in the stone buildings that expresses the world of Buddhism and the Chinese letter 'Sim'(heart)-shaped tributaries. By experimenting new method away from a Chinese-style Japanese garden which was widely popular during his time, Soseki devised a garden as residential quarters of a high priest that can be set aside entirely for Zen-study, which became to represent Japanese garden style. If Soseki's gardening method had not been adopted, Japanese gardens could not have been developed as a personal garden that contains symbolic concepts. Unfortunately, in this study, to think of another Zen monk and Mus${\bar{o}}$ Soseki did not study is to compare. also the study on how another Zen monk and Mus${\bar{o}}$ Soseki's compare has to be continued.