Japanese Garden at Adachi Museum of Art Enjoys 21 Years at the Top
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Every year, Sukiya Living, a US-based magazine, calls on experts from around the world to choose the 50 best Japanese gardens from among roughly 1,000 candidates, including gardens at Japanese traditional inns and private residences. This project aims to evaluate Japanese gardens simply by their beauty and quality, without regard to scale or level of fame.
The top Japanese garden in 2023 was Adachi Museum of Art, the twenty-first consecutive year it has held this ranking. This garden, which surrounds the museum and covers an area of around 165,000 square meters, features a diverse array of garden styles, including a karesansui (dry landscape) garden, a moss garden, and a white gravel and pine garden.
Speaking about being ranked top for the twenty-first year, the museum Director Adachi Takanori said that “The garden is a sensitive organism. It is also unequivocal in that if it is not cared for properly, it begins to show signs of wear and tear that cannot be undone. The ‘superb’ maintenance of the garden that we were praised for does not involve any special techniques or work processes. It is merely the accumulation of steady daily activity by hand, with everyone working together as one.”
Mount Kikaku forms the backdrop to the karesansui (dry landscape) garden at Adachi Museum of Art, from which the artificially created Kikaku Waterfall drops fifteen meters, representing the scenery found in Yokoyama Taikan’s work Waterfall in Nachi. (© Adachi Museum of Art. Reproduction/copying of the image prohibited.)
The Katsura Rikyū garden of the Imperial Household Agency in Kyoto was once again runner-up, for the twenty-first year running. Other high-ranking gardens included Yamamoto-tei, a former private residence in Tokyo’s Katsushika and Minami-kan, a ryokan in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture.
Top 10 Japanese Gardens in 2023
| Name / Location | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Adachi Museum of Art/Yasugi, Shimane |
| 2 | Katsura Rikyū/Kyoto, Kyoto |
| 3 | Yamamoto-tei/Katsushika, Tokyo |
| 4 | Minami-kan/Matsue, Shimane |
| 5 | Sekitei/Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima |
| 6 | Matsudaya Hotel/Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi |
| 7 | Gyokudō Art Museum/Ōme, Tokyo |
| 8 | Ninomaru Gardens, Nijō Castle/Kyoto, Kyoto |
| 9 | Yōkō-kan/Fukui, Fukui |
| 10 | Sankeien/Mihara, Hiroshima |
Selected by the US journal Sukiya Living Magazine (The Journal of Japanese Gardening).
The Shōkin-tei teahouse within the Katsura Rikyū garden in Kyoto. (© Pixta)
Yamamoto-tei in the Shibamata neighborhood of Katsushika, Tokyo. (© Pixta)
The karesansui (dry landscape) garden at the Gyokudō Art Museum in Ōme, Tokyo. (© Pixta)
Ninomaru Gardens at Nijō Castle in Kyoto. (© Pixta)
Yōkō-kan Garden in Fukui, Fukui Prefecture. (© Pixta)
Sankei-en Garden in Mihara, Hiroshima. (© Pixta)
(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo: Red maple leaves add a pop of color to the Pond Garden at Adachi Museum of Art. © Adachi Museum of Art. Reproduction/copying of the image prohibited.)