was a Japanese-American landscape architect, best known for his design of the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden at the

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) is a botanical garden in the borough of Brooklyn, New York City. It was founded in 1910 using land from Mount Prospect Park in central Brooklyn, adjacent to Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum. The garden holds ...

Biography

Shiota was born about 40 miles (60 km) outside of Tokyo on July 13, 1881. He came to the United States at the age of 26. In addition to his landscape work, he was also the author of ''The miniature Japanese landscape: a short description'' in 1915. In the 1920s he formed a partnership with Thomas S. Rockrise (born Iwahiko Tsumanuma, 1878 - 1936) and conducted business from 366 Fifth Avenue. Shiota died in an internment camp in South Carolina in 1943.

Work

The design of the Shiota's Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden at the

, dates from 1914. It stands as the prototype for a popular genre, the first

Japanese garden are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden desi ...

to be created in an American public garden. Shiota's design blended the ancient hill-and-pond style and the stroll-garden style of the

Azuchi–Momoyama period The was the final phase of the in Japanese history from 1568 to 1600. After the outbreak of the Ōnin War in 1467, the power of the Ashikaga Shogunate effectively collapsed, marking the start of the chaotic Sengoku period. In 1568, Oda Nobuna ...

, in which various landscape features are gradually revealed along winding paths. Its contain hills, a waterfall, a pond, and an island, all artificially constructed, with wooden bridges, stone lanterns, a viewing pavilion, a ''

torii A is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred. The presence of a ''torii'' at the entrance is usually the simple ...

'', and a

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

shrine (razed by an arsonist in 1937 and rebuilt in 1960). Other work includes: * one of the four gardens at the Sister Mary Grace Burns Arboretum in Lakewood Township,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

(originally commissioned by

George Jay Gould I George Jay Gould I (February 6, 1864 – May 16, 1923) was a financier and the son of Jay Gould. He was himself a railroad executive, leading the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (DRGW), Western Pacific Railroad (WP), and the Manhatt ...

, and now part of

Georgian Court University Georgian Court University (GCU or Georgian Court) is a private Roman Catholic university in Lakewood Township, New Jersey. Founded in 1908 by the Sisters of Mercy, the university has more than 1,600 undergraduates and nearly 600 graduate students ...

) * a Japanese garden at the Walter Kroll house, "Sho-Chiku-Bai", in

Tuxedo Park, New York Tuxedo Park is a village in Orange County, New York, United States. Its population was 623 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown metropolitan area as well as the larger New York metropolitan area. Its name is ...

, for architects Walker & Gillette, c. 1912 * the rooftop North Garden at the

Astor Hotel Hotel Astor was a hotel on Times Square in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Built in 1905 and expanded in 1909–1910 for the Astor family, the hotel occupied a site bounded by Broadway, Shubert Alley, and 44th and 45th Stre ...

The Japanese influence in America, Clay Lancaster

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shiota, Takeo 1881 births 1943 deaths Japanese landscape architects Japanese-American internees Japanese emigrants to the United States