Name: Augsburg Japanese Garden    Alternate Name: Augsburg Botanical Garden  Address: Botanischer Garten, Dr.-Ziegenspeck-Weg 10  Mailing Address:   City: Augsburg  State: Bavaria  Postal Code: D-86161  Country: GERMANY  Latitude/Longitude: lat=48.34884; long=10.92066 Find Gardens Nearby Phone: (0)821-3246038  Fax: (0)821-3246050  E-Mail: afgn.stadt@augsburg.de  Contact:   Designer(s): Dr. Kondoh, Mr. Enomoto, Yoshikuni Araki  Contruction Date: 1984  Public/Private: PUBLIC  Hours: 9am - 6pm; open until 9pm in the summer.  Admission: ??  Added to JGarden: 10/18/2001  Last Updated: 9/4/2004  Sources: Christian Laugwitz; official CD-Rom issued by the garden office.  JGarden Description: At 4,200 square meters, this is said to be the largest Japanese garden in Europe. In 1985, the Augsburg Garden Expo was held east of the city near the botanical gardens. The Hyogo-ken sister city sponsored the construction of a new garden in conjunction with the expo. The design is for a grove of European beech trees. The design emphasizes the planes of site rather than the location of features.

Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto Only in the cloister Could such a garden thrive, a soil where nature     Flowers in spiritual dryness, Drawing an interior nurture     From sand and rock. Where the labyrinth of illusion     No longer entangles the senses Enmeshing vision in delusive lusters; Where the lust of the eyes is silenced And desire of forms, and names of forms,     Move to no visible end. Those who planted here Sowed no ephemeral seed For the seasonal tempests to scatter, But the silent root that ripens in detachment,     Flowers in renunciation. Gardeners of eternity, Those who planted here     Framed the garden in the image of a desert     And the desert in the image of a sea -- Then shrunk the seas to the mind's salt and, tasting,     Dissolved all thought away. On these rocks no water breaks. Without attrition Tides and currents in this ocean rest and revolve     In a void of sound, vortex of sand; perpetual Circles enmesh and paralyzed sea and air: The effigy of time and measure     Purged of time and measure Becalmed on this dead sea of being No wave moves, no wind of desire     Flexes the indolent sail. But focussing its single eye On dreamless immobility The gulf like a burnished mirror     Regards the empty void. In this dead sea of vision the surges Merge without movement; the tides Indifferent to flood and ebb     Freeze in a flux of haste. The seagull without motion Broods on the changeless waste, Then sinks, his feathers frozen,     In a sand ocean. Frail caravels who sail This subtle gulf, morte mer, Who stir with urgent keel The fossil waters of the Great Mirage,     Or steer by lodestone to delusive ports: In this calm beyond stasis, dead calm, No compass points to the land,     No magnet of attachment     Guides the helmsman's hand Through fifteen naked rocks in raked and rhythmic sand. Here is no sea for the admirals, The whalers, the merchants of cargoes --     Those finite venturers for the temporal haven. These depths are destination, And naufrage sweeter than harbor.     Shipwreck is haven on this inland sea.   John M. Steadman   20th Century