Unfolding Architecture, Enfolding Landscape: The Shakkei at Geppa-rō Pavilion

Abstract

Abstract In this article I introduce the notion of “borrowing scenery” or jiejing (Jp. shakkei) from Ji Cheng’s 1635 treatise Yuanye (The Craft of Gardens). Shakkei became highly influential in the west through Teiji Itoh’s popular book Space and Illusion in the Japanese Garden (1965). I firstly use an analysis of the 1652 Geppa-rō tea pavilion at Katsura Rikyū as a case study that satisfies Itoh’s model of shakkei. This allows me to propose an ontological foil to Itoh’s model that draws on the Ming-era discourse of Shao Bao (1460–1527), contemporary Chinese scholarship on borrowing as well as David Bohm’s concepts of unfolding and enfolding from his metaphysics of the implicate and explicate orders. I conclude the article with a novel formalisation of what I call an unfolding architecture and enfolding landscape at the Geppa-rō pavilion.