The Beginning garden

What it is

At its base lies a cosmogony that came from India: the universe as a round disc with Mount Meru at the centre, concentric mountain ranges radiating out from it and oceans spreading between them.

The inspiration is the work of Mirei Shigemori, the master who rethought the Japanese garden in the twentieth century: “A garden is not a copy of nature but an idea expressed through nature.”

How ours is made

Mount Sumeru — the principal stone of the composition (shugeki): the axis of the world, the bridge between heaven and earth, the source of life. When the water is connected, it will pour from exactly here.

The nine mountains — the concentric ranges around Sumeru: large boulders, stone compositions, changes of level. Each mountain is a level of consciousness.

The eight seas — spiralling lines of paving and gravel of different textures, in Shigemori's manner: the sea of fresh water, of milk, of yoghurt, of butter, of sugar cane, of wine, of clarified butter and of nectar. The spiral is the movement of ki energy.

The “splashes” — ishizuta stone posts that have leapt away from Sumeru: the drops from which planets form. Movement frozen, energy held still.

The three islands — the worlds where life already exists: the world of people, the world of gods and the enlightened, the world of nature and spirits.

Why it stands by the stage: in Japanese culture you do not look a person in the eye while listening to them — an ikebana is placed on the table so the gaze has somewhere to go. When poetry is read or music is played on the stage, the audience looks not into empty space but at the Garden-Universe.

Concept by

Irina Andrianova

Source of the form

Mirei Shigemori's Yūrin garden

Workshop

23–24 May 2026

What next

connecting the water