Far Eastern garden art in Vienna
A Japanese rock garden is hidden away in the Baroque Schönbrunn Palace Park. The garden was created by Schönbrunn gardeners near the Palm House in 1913, ran wild after the First World War, and fell into oblivion with the passing decades. At the end of the 1990s, the rock garden was restored with the help of Japanese experts. The Takasaki garden in the Kurpark Oberlaa is also a reconstruction, although of a 600 m² garden first laid out in 1974. The garden designed according to plans by the architect Kinsaku Nakane was the Japanese contribution to the Vienna International Garden Show. After the show, it was removed again. However, the city of Takasaki worked for its reinstatement and so the Takasaki park was recreated in the 1990s.
Setagaya park in the 19th district was laid out in 1992 according to the plans of the Japanese garden designer Ken Nakajima. The 4,000 m² park can be traced back to the city partnership between the Viennese district of Döbling with the Tokyo city district of Setagaya. Another Japanese garden was opened in Vienna in the 21st district in 2009. The small park is named for the popular Japanese film figure Tora-San. The only episode of the very successful Japanese comedy series to play abroad (48 films from 1968 to 1996 with the leading actor Kiyohsi Atsumi) was filmed in Vienna in 1989 at locations including a heuriger in the 21st district. The district of Floridsdorf, in which Tora-San park is located, is also a partner district to the Tokyo district of Katsushika.
There is also an Asia garden in the Kagran School Gardens. The themed garden shows plants from East Asia in the style of Far Eastern garden culture and was designed in collaboration with a Japanese garden designer. A beautiful cherry orchard on Danube Island blossoms every year in the spring. It was planted by the Japanese artists' group "to the woods" as a reinterpretation of the traditional Japanese garden. The cherry orchard is also a symbol of the friendship between Austria and Japan and part of the gift of 1,000 cherry trees that Japan presented to Austria on its 1,000th anniversary.
