Friday, June 4, 2004

THEN AND NOW

By SUMIKO ENBUTSU

The landscape in the accompanying 1830s woodblock print depicts the valley of the Kandagawa River.

Korakuen's renowned arched stone bridge designed for Lord Tokugawa's garden by Chinese cholar Zhu Shun Shui (1600-82)

Focusing on a boat in the foreground, artist Hasegawa Settan (1778-1843) has captured the moment when the three men on board sipping sake hear a cuckoo cry. They all look up as the bird flies high into the sky. Farther upstream are more boats, suggesting this early summer time is a good season for a river jaunt.

Settan sketched the scene as he stood about where JR Ochanomizu Station is now, facing west toward Mount Fuji on the horizon. The building on the right is a restaurant, now no longer standing, while the wooded cliff on the left used to border the northern perimeter of Edo (present-day Tokyo).

Settan's real focus, however, was a narrow roofed bridge on high stilts, which was an aqueduct on the Kanda Canal delivering drinking water to Edo. The canal, built in 1629, originated at a dam on high ground 3 km upstream, and crossed the river to reach the city. In pre-modern Japan, without pumps, the distribution of water in urban areas depended on gravity, just as it did with the arched Roman aqueducts.

En route to the riverside, the canal water was used to create a landscaped garden for Lord Tokugawa of the Mito domain, one of the three successor houses to the shogun. Named Koishikawa Korakuen, the 370-year-old garden is now a metropolitan property open to the public -- one boasting the double distinction of being both a designated national historic site and a designated national place of special scenic beauty.

The Kanda Canal was demolished in 1900, when its function was taken over by a modern water-supply system introduced after the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

Our walk this month features Korakuen Garden, where irises are in bloom and young rice plants are beginning to grow. A remnant of the Kanda Canal remains there, too, its lost linkage to the dam traceable on a road a distance away from the garden to the site of the dam.

The East Exit of JR Suidobashi Station is a good place to start your exploration. This exit is near a large modern bridge over the Kandagawa, which is also named Suidobashi -- meaning "waterworks bridge" -- and corresponds to its arched, wooden predecessor in the background of the print. Beyond the current bridge, Korakuen amusement park, a soaring new hotel and Tokyo Dome stadium all stand on the site of Lord Tokugawa's mansion, with Koishikawa Korakuen Garden -- your first destination -- at the west end off to the left.

However, if you take a short detour to the right before crossing Sotobori-dori, you will find the spot where the old aqueduct spanned the river, now marked by a stone monument bearing a reproduction of a mid-18th century woodblock print.

Crossing the highway, go left and then right at a blue parking sign beyond the second stoplight. A pleasant walkway bordering the rear of modern offices here leads to the garden entrance at a T-junction ahead.

Inside the gate, pause to look at the garden layout on the middle signboard. In the typical style of a so-called daimyo garden, it is landscaped around a large pond with meandering paths through woods and hills. Notice a river above the main pond, which is the extant stretch of the Kanda Canal. All the water in the garden is now supplied by pumps, but the stream of the Kanda Canal used to enter from the west and flow out east, bending south to reach the Kandagawa.

A ramble in the beautiful garden is a real treat, affording the essence of scenic Japan in a valley between modern high-rises. The main pond is assimilated to Lake Biwa with the large single pine named after the pine of Karasaki Point, a famed lakeside tree highly praised in classical poetry and paintings. The maple-planted valley by the smaller pond on the west side is inspired by the Oigawa in western Kyoto, which is famous for autumn colors. The dynamic placement of rocks is also characteristic of 17th-century daimyo gardens.

Among the notable Chinese influences, the most prominent is an arched stone bridge designed by Zhu Shun Shui (1600-82), a Chinese Confucian scholar who Lord Tokugawa held in high regard.

Having enjoyed a leisurely stroll, leave the garden and go right to cross the intersection ahead diagonally. Bearing right at the next stoplight, you will be following a curving road through residential districts developed around the edges of the Toshima Upland. Try to imagine a meandering waterway trenched on this hillside, wooded and craggy in the 17th century, constructed with utmost attention to ensuring a continuous flow while losing height as gradually as possible.

Arriving at the junction with a gas station on your right, cross Otowa-dori and go left to enter a lovely linear park along the Kandagawa. A short distance ahead, beyond a wisteria trellis, a rectangular stone block and a short artificial stream mark the former site of the dam.

Continuing on, you may like to go in through the back gate of the Chinzanso Four Seasons Hotel to see the splendid garden. Also nearby is the Basho Memorial House (see this column, June 20, 2002) at the foot of a heavily wooded slope reminiscent of the area's original topographical features.

To return, go back to the park entrance to find Edogawabashi Station on the Yurakucho subway line on your right.

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