Garden of the Museum of East Asian Art

The original Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst opened in Cologne in 1913, but the present building at the Aachener Weiher was opened in 1977. The new museum was designed by Kunio Maekawa, with Cologne architects Berner and Jacobs responsible for implementation. The Japanese interior garden was conceived by Masayuki Nagare as part of the architectural ensemble.

The garden is closely connected with Nagare’s sculptural work at the site, especially the granite sculpture Fahne im Wind / Flag in the Wind, dated 1980, which stands on a small artificial island in the pond in front of the museum. For this reason, 1977 is the better date for the museum garden context, while 1980 should be treated as the date of the associated outdoor sculpture rather than the garden’s opening date.

Although the museum stands beside Hiroshima-Nagasaki-Park, the garden should be understood primarily as part of the Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, rather than as a separate public park garden. The surrounding park, inaugurated in 2004, is a memorial landscape dedicated to peace and remembrance of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; it lies in Cologne’s Inner Green Belt, close to the museum and the Japanese Cultural Institute.

The garden’s significance lies in the way it connects Japanese modern architecture, museum display, and garden aesthetics. With its rocks, water, trees and enclosed spatial setting, it offers visitors an experience of Japanese landscape and spatial sensibility within a modern European museum. As a result, it is best described as an interior Japanese meditation garden integrated into one of Europe’s most important institutions devoted to East Asian art.