Life and Works of Isamo Noguchi 011108

Works and gardens of Isamu Noguchi

Theory of Landscape History Parin Shah LA 8808

Isamu Noguchi was a sculptor, designer, architect, and craftsman. Throughout his life he struggled to see, alter, and recreate his natural surroundings.

The blurring of boundaries in Isamu Noguchi’s work mirrored his personal history: a fusion of his Japanese father’s Asian heritage and the American modernity of his Californian mother.

He was sent to Indiana for schooling in 1918, and in 1922 he apprenticed to the sculptor Gutzon Borglum in Connecticut. Noguchi decided to become an artist and left Columbia in 1925. A John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship in 1927 enabled him to go to Paris, where he worked as Constantin Brancusi’s studio assistant. Brancusi's engagement with the abstract and his belief in understanding the pre-disposed forms of his materials made a strong impression on Noguchi. In Paris, he became friendly with Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, Alberto Giacometti and Jules Pascin.

Returning to New York in 1929, Noguchi found little acceptance for his abstract sculptures. His sculpted portraits, however, earned him not only a new degree of recognition, but a living as well. While these commissions increased his popularity, the work seemed stifling, and in the thirties he moved to Mexico City to work on a large three-dimensional mural with the painter Diego Rivera. While not his own work, the mural was closer in scale to the large pieces he longed to create. His work in Mexico City eventually won him the opportunity to create the entrance to the Associated Press building in New York. With this, Noguchi was able to work on a large scale project of his own.

When the US joined World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Noguchi campaigned to improve the lot of Japanese-Americans, many of whom were herded into detention camps. After the War, he contributed to the reconstruction of Japanese industry when the city of Gifu asked him to revive its stricken paper lantern industry. Noguchi moved there with Yamaguchi, whom he had met and married in 1950. They lived in a traditional wooden house and he developed new designs which harnessed the ancient skills of the Gifu lantern-makers to produce modern electrified versions of traditional candle-lit lanterns. Beautifully shaped and capable of folding perfectly flat, his Akari light sculptures are still made by hand in Gifu today from the mino-gami paper that comes from the bark of mulberry trees.

Life of Isamu Noguchi

Isamu sought solace in Kyoto, where he became enthralled by the exquisite simplicity of the ancient Buddhist rock gardens. He was inspired by and collaborated with many of the inventive American architects, choreographers, and painters of his time. With his long-time friend, Buckminster Fuller, he constructed models, planned outdoor projects, and investigated the ways in which people live and thrive in their environments. By creating sets for the choreographers Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and George Ballenchine, he continued this investigation. He was well respected by many artists, including Frida Kahlo, Arshille Gorky, and Willem de Kooning, but never belonged to any movement or school. For the rest of his life, Noguchi applied his sculptural sensibility to everything he created: from his mulberry paper Akari lights and Martha Graham’s dance sets, to the mass-manufactured Zenith Radio Nurse and the stone gardens he landscaped at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters and Lever House in New York. His gardens and fountains were transformations meant to bring out the beauty their locations had always possessed. He believed that through sculpture and architecture, one could better understand the struggle with nature. It is that search for understanding which brings together his many and varied works. Noguchi died in December of 1988 at the age of 84, but his influence continues to spread.

Life of Isamu Noguchi

Notable works by Noguchi

•Japanese Garden at UNESCO Headquarters, Paris,

France

•A bridge in Peace Park, Hiroshima, Japan

•Kodomo no Kuni, a children's playground in Yokohama,

Japan

•Bayfront Park, 1980-1990, Miami, Florida

•Sunken Garden for Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript

Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

•Sunken Garden for Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza, New

York

•Gardens for the IBM headquarters, Armonk, New York

•Billy Rose Sculpture Garden, Israel Museum, Jerusalem

•Playscapes, a children's playground, Atlanta, Georgia

•Bust of Martha Graham, Honolulu Academy of Arts,

Honolulu, Hawaii

•Tsuneko-san (1931), Honolulu Academy of Arts

•Sculpture for First National City Bank Building, Fort Worth,

Texas

Notable works by Isamu Noguchi

•Red Cube (1968), HSBC Building, New York

•Untitled Red (1965-66), Honolulu Academy of Arts

•Sky Gate (1977), Honolulu Hale, Hawaii

•Portal, Justice Center Complex, Cleveland, Ohio.

•Dodge Fountain and Philip A. Hart Plaza in Detroit, Michigan

(created in collaboration with Shoji Sadao)

•Black Sun (1969), Volunteer Park, Seattle, Washington

•California Scenario (1980-1982), Costa Mesa, California

•Bolt of Lightning... Memorial to Ben Franklin (1984),

Franklin Square, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

•Landscape of the Cloud, in the lobby of 666 Fifth Avenue,

New York

•Lillie & Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden (1986) for the

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

•His final project was the design for Moerenuma Park, a 400

acre (1.6 km²) park for Sapporo, Japan. Designed in 1988

shortly before his death, it is completed and opened to the

public in 2004.

UNESCO Garden, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris (1956-58) A sunken sculptural garden of 1700 sq.mt, modernist example, reinterpretation of the Japanese aesthetics...

Reflects Noguchi's efforts to reconcile his Japanese and American cultural influences... The spirit of Japan is not so obvious in the rest of the garden, but it may be recognized in the triangulated and asymmetric composition and in the rather oblique references the various elements supply.

From Isamu Noguchi’s Biography

Originally, Noguchi was only supposed to create the delegates' patio, a roughly triangular small area at the end of the main secretariat building, intended as a sort of outside room. It was placed in difficult relation to this building. He finally convinced the architects and the Artistic Counselors that the space between the main building (1) and the building 3 should be bridged and made his proposals for a Japanese "inspired" Garden called – The Garden of Peace. They allocated $35,000 for the construction of; design of a walk, a cascade of water, and a flowing pond below. In the beginning he hoped only to integrate the two levels by raising portions of the lower one containing greenery and trees. However, as he elaborated on the model it became apparent to him that it would be ideal if the area below could be transformed into a major sculptural effort through the introduction of rocks and so forth. There was no budget for rocks, not for any trees either, and the subsequent development of the garden was due to the persistence and the good will of many people... Inside a ravine in a brook in the mountains on the island of Shikoku, Noguchi selected each stone, following the plan that he had devised in Tokyo. There could be no waste, such as might be afforded in Japan, no hauling of stones that were not to be specifically useful, and for a particular shape and a purpose.


This whole operation was remarkable. Collecting the rocks; setting them up in a trial area in Tokushima; getting the water basins (chozubachi) and stepping-stones in Kyoto; quarrying the Fountain Stone in Okayama; quarrying and carving on Shodo shima (island) the stone bridge, the various stone lanterns, and stepping-stones – All this was done before any money had been collected, such was the credit of the purpose – eighty-eight tons of stone were shipped to Paris. The building of the garden in Paris did not go smoothly… By the winter, Noguchi had managed to get only two rocks placed... He realized that French riggers could handle marble statuary but not rocks on a rough terrain. He requested three gardeners from Japan to work with him. Japanese master gardener Toemon Sano the 16th recently restored the garden, in keeping with Noguchi's will.


Serene composition of flowering cherry trees, plum trees, magnolias, lotuses, bamboo, rocks, and water— representing the harmony between nature and mankind.


Flowery path

Delegates Patio, Peace Fountain at the entrance to the garden… A tall water source stone, the largest stone in the garden, stands as a sort of monolith in a rectangular pool of water cascading over a mirror-image inscription of the Japanese character, 'wa' meaning 'peace and harmony'. The waterfall itself is composed of two stoned which may be read as 'man‘.


The water flows down from the Peace Stone to a concrete channel that steps down a slope into the sunken garden, breaking from its straight channel into a series of curvilinear pools at the bottom.

The pathway – represents Buddhism metaphors for passage from the material life into the Pure Land. The raised paved area is the Pure Land from which one arrives and departs via the stepping stones.


The raised paved area in the centre – recalls the 'Happy Land', the land of the dead in the Buddhist religion.

One arrives on it and departs from it again – with time barriers of stepping-stones between – it is the land of voyage, the place for dancing and music.

The upper level, has little to do with conventional Japanese garden. But enough of the Japanese tradition remains to make the garden stand out from its setting.

The result – a stark contrast between old and new,the natural and the man-made.



The lower garden – derives more directly from the Japanese garden than does the upper level – In accordance with the nature of the commission.

The contrast between a stark, 20th century version of modernism is woven with the more traditional garden through the use of a stream and path armature that anchors the spaces and binds them both together.

The plantings are distributed amongst these stone skeleton.


The two old 'chozubachi‘ (water basin) are included which are part of the Japanese garden. An old stone or some broken fragment from an old stupa is used to make water basin.

Noguchi's garden, filled with water, as seen from above; a circular incision in the plaza

The base of the garden is set one story below street level. The opening in the plaza – bordered on top by a metal railing, allowing viewers to stand comfortably at the edge and look into the space below. The space is surrounded on all sides by floor-to-ceiling windows, allowing the garden to be seen from the inside, and opening up the lower level of the building to the outdoors.

Sunken Garden, Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza, New York City(1961-64)

Sunken Garden, Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza, New York City(1961-64)

Extremely spare composition; seven wildly – eroded river stones from Japan serves as the focus of the landscape. The largest four are set in concentric circles of granite pavers, which replace the raked gravel of the Japanese garden; the other three are scattered nearby. The regularity of the pavers is interrupted by serpentine lines that suggest waves. This reference to water is strengthened in the summer, when garden becomes a shallow pool, with water flowing from two concentric rings to low fountain jets. One of the strongest example of real spiritual energy. Spatial composition achieves the force of object. Noguchi has fused fixed objects and continual movement to create a composition neither pond, nor pool, nor traditional fountain. Here, he meant to suggest a levitation of the stones from the earth.

Gardens of the Past, IBM Headquarters, Armonk, New York(1964)

Rough – hewn boulders stand in a landscape of grass, gravel and trees... A granite path crosses diagonally an area of bluegrass. On one side of this is a large rock with water running down its surface into a small pool, and on the other a composition of six large rocks. The two gardens, separated by a three-level glass walled bridge which houses escalators, are visible from all the interior offices.

Gardens of the Future, IBM Headquarters, Armonk, New York(1964)

Represents mankind’s future… Only a few trees remain… And a tiny spots of grass… The space is covered with stone and dominated by massive sculptural forms. A large black dome near the centre emerges from the earth to explore the universe. Diagrams of nuclear formations, stellar constellations and computer circuitry, are carved in this. A concave red concrete pool, meant to resemble a satellite dish. Critical formulas of scientific development in the dial-like marble semi-circle at the other end. Between them is a red concavity with a fountain inside, and facing this is a bronze sculpture of two interlocking helix, the code of life.

Perhaps the first and certainly the most accomplished introduction of integrated , inorganic, nontraditional industrial materials. The hard, shiny richly coloured convex and concave disks foreshadow much in the recent landscape-as-art movement.

Scan and insert picture from the reference book.

CALIFORNIA SCENARIO (1980-82) Remarkable landscape of 1.6 acre tucked between two clusters of office buildings and a parking garage.

Embodiment of California through an artist’s eyes...

Inspired by Japanese garden structure, with an array of contrasting elements: natural and formed objects; mounds and flat spaces; wet and dry spaces.

The forms and symbols chosen to represent California in the work reflect both a basic understanding of archetypal units of California, and of an overall mystery.

Continuing into this space, there is a fountain of stone, capped by stainless steel, marking the transition into a different spatial envelope, the "Energy Fountain“ also representing the vitality of California's natural wonders and human population.

Entering into the complex in the direction of the freeway reveals subtle changes. Paths of flagstone of a rose hue draw inward, hinting at something more.


The individual piece titled by Noguchi, the Spirit of the Lima Bean, is both a wonder of construction and visually remarkable. Simple in its meaning, the large grouping of rocks reflects the essence of the Lima Bean, the crop that was farmed in the area prior to development.


Extremes of California's natural features are displayed from the hot dry deserts (represented by the flag stone paved areas - like scorched crackled earth) to lush meadows and redwood forests.


A mound called "The Desert Land" is planted with succulents and cactus. The contrasting redwood grove of "The Forest Walk" is located opposite the "Desert Land."

The Forest Walk


A triangular wedge of polished Sierra granite is the terminus of the water flow. Called "Water Use," it represents the infinite consumption of water, as well as the ocean towards which the water flows.


Water is the most symbolic feature, the source of the California dream. It is expressed in several ways including the sculptural "Energy Fountain" and the stream which divides the garden flowing from the "Source" to the "Use." The meanings are many in human society and in California: water is the basis of life, it shapes our landscape, provides our crops, sustains our cities, and has been a battle ground literally, politically and environmentally. Water flows from a tall wedge the "Water Source," which represents the mountain ranges.


This mound topped with a large polished granite monolith called "Land Use" almost easy to overlook but provides a commentary on our use of the land with this massive man-shaped object placed atop a land form.

Sculpted granite benches occupy various positions around the garden.

Noguchi’s hidden jewel, enclosed in industrialism, sits still today as it did when Noguchi first

installed it, slowly aging and growing wilder by the day...


As the Latin America Daily Post referred to him so eloquently, “He is a curator. A curator of time and space. A creator of a continuum of the universe that is only known to him.” For those preoccupied with landscape and with space, he did something magical. in 1981, the Latin American Daily Post beautifully articulated the artist’s ability for capturing space, "This is a man who has brought clarity to natures order. It is a vision of time and space made tangible by one who lives in the present, but scans all and perhaps more, of what is Homo sapiens." It is the rocks that make a garden... Plants of all sorts, however large the trees, are in a way like weeds: they come and go, but the essential quality of a garden is maintained through the solid disposition of rocks... They are its bones... – Noguchi “The art of stone in a Japanese garden is that of placement. Its ideal does not deviate from that of nature... But I am also a sculptor of the West. I place my mark and do not hide.“ - Noguchi

Life and Works of Isamo Noguchi 011108

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