Japanese Garden, Kranenkai
Overview
The Japanese Garden at Kranenkai is the smaller of two Japanese gardens in Würzburg. It is located beside the Alter Kranen on the Main river and is connected with Würzburg’s sister-city relationship with Ōtsu, Japan, established in 1979. WürzburgWiki identifies it as the smaller Japanese garden in the city and places it at the Kranenkai / Kranenbastion area.
History
The garden was originally created in 1981 as a gift connected with the Japanese partner city Ōtsu. It was redesigned / rebuilt in 1990 after the earlier garden had to give way to construction works at Kranenkai. German garden summaries identify Japanese landscape architect Professor Shiro Nakane as the designer of both Würzburg Japanese gardens, including the Kranenkai garden.
Design features
The Kranenkai garden is a small dry garden of about 150 m², with a central “dry pond” of pale gravel, granite boulders from the Fichtelgebirge, Japanese sculptures and planting including maples, magnolias and ornamental cherries. It is documented on Wikimedia Commons as “Zen-Garten ‘Ômi no niwa’ am Kranenkai”, though in practice it is best kept distinct from Würzburg’s larger Ōmi no Niwa garden created for the 1990 Landesgartenschau.
Garden elements
Stones
Other elements
Current status
Extant small public Japanese dry garden beside the Main river at Kranenkai. It remains freely accessible as a compact urban Zen garden / gravel garden near the Alter Kranen.