Noguchi's Gardens: Landscape as Sculpture

While sculpture remained central to his artistic practice, Isamu Noguchi’s (1904–1988) interests and production spanned an exceptionally broad terrain that included furniture and lamps, stage sets for dance, plazas, courtyards — and gardens. Noguchi made no distinction between design, craft, and the so-called fine arts: in his view all of these could all be considered art should their aesthetic qualities sufficiently transcend those generated by the simple address of need.

Although his gardens include several of the twentieth century’s most iconic landscape designs and have received almost universal praise, Noguchi nonetheless occupies a place removed from the normal practice of landscape architecture. As an artist he relied more on intuition – bolstered by focused study where required – than on objective analysis, and he shaped his landscapes as sculpture, with space as their primary vehicle. To Noguchi landscape design was a spatial and formal art, and from his earliest environmental projects to the works of his later maturity, he succeeded in conceiving and constructing a series of remarkable places.

In this comprehensive and richly illustrated study of Noguchi’s gardens, noted landscape historian Marc Treib describes and critiques projects that date from his early unrealised projects for playgrounds and monuments to a large park in Sapporo, Japan, whose construction was completed only posthumously. The story begins with the discussion of Noguchi sculpture that relate in some way to actual landscapes, then moves to the dance set designs for Martha Graham, finally entering the realm of actual landscapes with his gardens for the Reader’s Digest offices in Tokyo and UNESCO House in Paris. Many more projects followed in the United States, Japan, and Israel.

Varying in their content and structure, several chapters collectively treat subjects such as landform, water, and the courtyard, while others focus on the major gardens monographically. Accompanied by stunning images from the archives of Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum archives and the author’s own photographs, the story of Noguchi’s Gardens: Landscape as Sculpture will reward those interested in landscape architecture, art history, garden design, and art more broadly. 

About the Author:

Marc Treib Professor of Architecture Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, is a historian and critic of landscape and architecture who has published widely on modern and historical subjects in the United States, Japan, and Scandinavia. Books published by ORO Editions include Landscapes of Modern Architecture; Austere Gardens; The Landscapes of Georges Descombes: Doing Almost Nothing; and Thinking a Modern Landscape Architecture, West and East; and more recently The Aesthetics of Contemporary Planting Design and Serious Fun: The Landscapes of Claude Cormier.