![]() ![]() Slawson, who received his doctorate in Japanese literature and aesthetics from Indiana University, studied for two years in Kyoto with Kinsaku Nakane, one of Japan’s foremost garden designers. The design of the garden, as well as its construction, was accomplished by David Slawson between 19 with the assistance of Peter Smith and Marshall Gittler ’76. This semi-formal walk serves a dual role: its straight line frames the garden scene from below, and it divides that scene (not to be physically entered) from the viewing area which includes a tea-house style pavilion and curved redwood benches. The nobedan, or stone-paved walk, invites one in measured steps along the sunken granite slabs to leave the work-a-day world behind and gaze upon the garden much as one would view a work of art. On the right as one enters the garden is a water basin ( chozubachi) with its bamboo pipe dripping water where, by custom, a visitor will pause to wash hands in a symbolic gesture of cleansing. This Japanese lantern, and a second one called a yukimi, or snow-viewing lantern, were obtained from a retired Minneapolis executive who returned with them after World War II. It contains a place for a candle traditionally used to light the way to a shrine or temple. These are the basic elements in the kare-sansui, or dry landscape garden.Ī five-and-one-half-foot chiseled salt and pepper granite stone lantern, known as “Kasuga” for the shrine in Nara where its style originated, stands at the entrance to the garden. Lake Superior beach stones become a mountain stream, while the white gravel is transformed into a lake with rock isles and spanned by a gently-bowed wooden bridge (to be enjoyed with one’s eyes, rather than trod upon!). They, in combination with a few carefully chosen shrubs and ground cover spread over the gently contoured ‘hill,’ produce a harmony which is further enhanced by the ‘borrowed scenery’ of the long-standing arbor vitae in the background. The angular, aged specimens in the Carleton garden are varied in size and shape: these lichen-covered rocks were searched for and gathered within a hundred mile radius of Northfield over a period of two summers. They are just like the bones in a human body the plant materials being the flesh.” In a Japanese garden the rocks are set so one has the sense they are rooted and anchored in the ground, not sitting on top of it. One famous contemporary designer of such gardens writes: “Rocks serve as the most important framework in creating a sense of natural landscape. Ancient rocks form the basic supporting frame of Carleton College’s compact Japanese garden, nestled behind Watson Hall.
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