Old Furukawa Garden

The garden was developed from the former residence of a conglomerate. Taking advantage of the topography of the Musashino Plateau, with its slopes and lowlands, a Western-style building was built on a small hill on the north side, with a Western-style garden on the slope and a Japanese garden on the lowlands.
The garden is designated as a national place of scenic beauty.
It is well known as one of the best places for roses in Tokyo.

The Western-style building is in the English Renaissance style, but Japanese style is also skillfully incorporated in the interior.
Completed in 1917, it is the work of British architect Josiah Conder, who also designed the Rokumeikan and other buildings.

The Japanese garden was designed by Jihei Ogawa VII, known as “Ueji,” a pioneer of modern Japanese gardens and a master gardener in Kyoto. Completed in 1919.

It is a rare and precious example of an early Taisho period garden that retains its original form. It is a superb and representative example of the harmony of Japanese and Western styles achieved through the fusion of traditional techniques and modern technology, and is also one of the few important examples of a modern garden that is extremely well preserved among existing modern gardens.

Another major attraction of the garden is that visitors can enjoy the park’s natural beauty in all four seasons, including roses in spring and fall (festivals are held for limited periods, such as when the garden is lit up at night) and the autumn leaves in the Japanese garden.

Western-style building

Completed in May 1917 (Taisho 6). Total floor space: 414 tsubo. Two stories above ground and one below. The exterior is said to have been designed in the Scottish Baronial style. It is not clear when or how Toranosuke Furukawa commissioned Condor to design the building, but the Western-style building was designed around 1911 [5]. The roof is slate. The brick frame is covered with a distinctive black field masonry of honkomatsuishi (andesite) stone from Manazuru.

The exterior viewed from the garden on the south side is nearly symmetrical, with gabled roofs on both sides, a triple arch on the first floor, and a veranda with a balustrade on the second floor, with dormer windows on the roof. The overall impression is that of a Scottish mountain villa, full of rustic charm and dignity. Once inside, the entrance door has a stained glass window with a design of the Furukawa family crest, the devil’s ivy.

The first floor consists of a dining room, billiard room, smoking room, and other guest spaces, all of which are Western-style rooms. The walls of the dining room are covered with crimson fabric, and there is a large fireplace with pineapple, apple, and other fruit decorations on the ceiling. The reception room is decorated with rose motifs.

The second floor is a private space including family rooms, all of which are Japanese-style rooms with tatami mats, except for the hall and bedrooms, which are Western-style rooms. The hall and each of the Japanese-style rooms are separated by a Western-style door and a buffer zone between boards, and are further divided by shoji screens and fusuma sliding doors to enter the Japanese-style room space. The Buddhist room is separated from the front room by a fire-light window-style doorway reminiscent of a Zen temple. The guest room is in the shoin style. The guest room is a Shoin-style room, which shows Condor’s painstaking efforts to create a harmonious coexistence of Japanese and Western styles. In contrast to Condor’s former Iwasaki Residence Garden, where the Japanese-style rooms are in the Japanese-style wing and the Western-style rooms are in the Western-style wing, the Japanese-style rooms are contained within the Western-style wing.

Currently, the Otani Museum of Art[7], a public interest incorporated foundation, manages the Western-style building[8]. The interior of the Western-style house can be visited by participating in guided tours that are held three times a day at set times. The tour covers the first to second floors of the main building with commentary. (The tour takes one hour and costs 800 yen (admission fee not included). In principle, reservations must be made in advance through the official website or by return postcard, but if reservations are available on the day of the tour, you may participate without a reservation. However, reservations are often oversubscribed during the rose blooming season, so it is recommended to make a reservation to ensure that you will be able to participate in the tour without waiting.

There is also a coffee shop on the first floor of the Western-style house, where visitors can enjoy a cup of tea while looking out over the rose garden through a window in spring and fall. Tours also come into the tearoom at certain times of the day, so visitors can join them for a cup of tea and a portion of the explanation. The Western-style house can also be rented for weddings and concerts, and commemorative events in the elegant Taisho era Western-style house are popular due to the atmosphere. Although there are special conditions and restrictions due to its location as a cultural asset, anyone can apply.

Western-style garden (rose garden)
Rose garden: set on a terrace on a slope in Italian style, but the interior is geometrically French.
The Western-style garden is located on the south side of the Western-style building. Overall, the garden is a three-dimensional Italian-style garden with stone railings, stone steps, and a water table on the slope, and a series of terraces in the rose garden in the form of steps, but the interior of the terraces is flat and geometric, using the techniques of a French-style garden.

In the rose terrace garden, the first level of flower beds is symmetrical, but the northeastern part of the flower beds, which are planted in a square shape from the second level to the right and left across the central staircase, is missing due to the protrusion of the slope. It is assumed that this was done intentionally by Condor in order to harmonize the rose garden with the Japanese garden in the lower part of the site.

Currently, the rose garden is planted with 199 roses of about 100 varieties.

The third terrace is a non-formed azalea garden, which provides continuity between the Western garden in the front and the Japanese garden in the back. Conder was not only a Western architectural engineer, but also had a thorough knowledge of Japanese gardens, having written a book entitled “Landscape Gardening in Japan” (“Landscape Gardening in Japan”).

Japanese Garden
The Japanese garden was completed in 1919, following the completion of the Western-style building and Western-style garden. It was created by Jihei Ogawa VII, a landscape architect from Kyoto. It is a pond garden located at the bottom of the slope. The garden is surrounded by dense forests of shii (Japanese cypress), Japanese linden, mukunoki, and maple trees, and is centered around a pond shaped like the Chinese character for “heart,” with a steep slope at its center.

The Shinji-ike Pond, which is shaped like the cursive form of the character for “heart,” is made of Kurama Heishi and Iyo Seishi, and features a boatswain’s stone looking out over the pond, a sandy beach in front, a yukimi lantern, a kare-taki waterfall, a masonry structure, and a hill in the background. Kare-Taki Falls is modeled after the water source of the ravine at the back of the Shu-hama beach of Shinji Pond. Otaki Falls are carved out of the steepest part of the park to form a cliff and fall from a height of more than 10 meters. The waterfall starts from a winding stream, passes through several small waterfalls, and falls into a deep waterfall basin.

Between the Shinji Pond and Otaki Waterfall, there is a teahouse built in the irimoya style. The tea house is managed by the Otani Museum of Art, and tea ceremonies are held there, and visitors can also enjoy powdered green tea for a fee of 500 yen.

Events
Events titled “Rose Festival” are held in conjunction with the blooming season of roses (spring roses: mid-May to June, fall roses: mid-October to November). During the first half of the spring event, the spring roses and the Western-style house will be illuminated after sunset. On weekends during the event period, musical performances and other events will be held on the lawn in front of the Western-style house. In addition to violin and piano performances, an erhu (Chinese violin) performance was held in 2006.