Imperial Splendor: Katsura Rikyu as a Platinum Standard Project

Watershaping advanced by leaps and bounds from 1999 through 2004 – a journey of artistry and practicality that was an inspiration to witness. In this retrospective feature, WaterShapes Editor Eric Herman reviews 25 key projects published during that time frame, offering an ongoing resource to watershapers while defining a Platinum Standard for the designers, engineers, builders and artists who use water as their chosen medium.

Described by Japanese garden expert Douglas Roth as being akin to “walking into a three-dimensional painting,” Katsura Rikyu is widely considered to be one of the most beautiful of all the world’s Japanese gardens. Roth traveled to Kyoto, Japan, to photograph and bask in Katsura’s transcendent beauty while defining for us the near-hypnotic effect its natural forms, meandering waterways and paths, asymmetrical spatial balances and generations of painstaking care have always had on visitors