In the construction of a Japanese garden in the US that was to exempilfy JG garden elements, the final installation was modified to include an additional opening, bamboo wall section, walk surface, and turn around for the handicap access.

It was a combination of hill and pond, stroll, and tea entry garden. Although it was a major impact on the garden, the designer and gardeners did not hesitate. Do you think there was a similar reason for the new gap?

Don,

It's some years since I was in the Nitobe Garden, but so far as I remember there was nothing in the way the Tea Garden used to be that would make it especially difficult for the handicapped, so I'd be guessing at what the answer is. It could be anything. Knowing how Philistine city governments can be, it wouldn't surprise me if the City of Vancouver had passed a bylaw about fire exits from public buildings and officialdom insisted that these included the Tea House on the grounds that it might catch fire.

It sets my imagination going - suppose they directed that the Tea House must be re-built to include wheelchair ramps? Or that tall lampstandards with sodium lights must be installed throughout the garden so that people can see their way round there at night?

Edzard can correct me if I'm mis-using the word, but my feeling is that Professor Mori's cloistered Tea Garden now feels like a thoroughfare & has lost its fuzei.

Herb