Kōfu Garden
Overview
The Kōfu Garden, also known as the Garden of Serenity, is a Japanese landscape garden in Pau, France, created to commemorate the partnership between Pau and Kōfu, in Yamanashi Prefecture. The approximately 1,900-square-metre garden represents a stylised mountainous landscape inspired by the surroundings of Kōfu. Its composition includes an artificial stream, rock formations, planted hills and a circulating path, while the distant Pyrenees are incorporated through shakkei, or borrowed scenery.
History
The garden developed from the municipal partnership established between Pau and Kōfu in 1975. It was planned as a permanent symbol of cultural exchange and was ceremonially inaugurated on 27 September 2005 by Pau mayor André Labarrère and Kōfu mayor Masanobu Miyajima, during celebrations marking the partnership’s thirtieth anniversary.
The project was not completed as a single construction campaign. Three landscape specialists from Kōfu first surveyed the site and prepared a design, which was subsequently adapted to local conditions by the Pau municipal green-space department. Kōfu’s chief gardener, Mr Naïtō, later visited Pau to supervise the selection and placement of stones and to train municipal gardeners in Japanese pruning techniques. The garden was developed between 2005 and 2012 and opened fully to the public in 2012, following restoration and completion of its planting and artificial stream. (The garden was ceremonially inaugurated in 2005 but developed gradually and opened fully to the public in 2012.)
A wooden viewing pavilion had been included in the original concept but was not constructed at the time. During the fiftieth anniversary of the Pau–Kōfu partnership in 2025, the City of Pau formally revived the project. The custom-designed pavilion is being built by the Compagnons du Tour de France and is scheduled for installation in 2026.
Design features
The garden is described as a traditional Japanese mountain-type garden, representing landscapes associated with Kōfu and the surrounding Yamanashi region. Visitors follow a circulating route through a sequence of symbolic scenes referring to Mount Fuji, the Shōsenkyō Gorge and the mythological Islands of the Immortals. The route and succession of viewpoints give the garden the character of a compact strolling landscape.
An artificial stream winds through the garden in a bed formed from Pyrenean stones, linking the Japanese composition with the geology and mountain scenery of Pau. Rock settings and modelled ground suggest mountains, gorges, islands and flowing water, while the view towards the Pyrenees forms an intentional borrowed landscape beyond the garden boundary.
The planting includes Japanese maples and flowering cherries, azaleas, camellias, small beeches, cypresses and spruces trained in bonsai-like forms. Existing mature coast redwoods help enclose the garden and connect it with the neighbouring historic Square Besson. Japanese pruning methods include rounded azalea masses and cloud-pruned trees and shrubs.
Garden elements
Bridges
Enclosures
Waters and islands
Stones
Current status
The garden remains maintained by the City of Pau and is freely accessible throughout the year. Its original composition is currently being completed through the addition of the planned wooden viewing pavilion in 2026.