is a historic

Japanese garden are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden des ...

in the city of

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

. The

Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum The is an art museum founded in 1968. It was reconstructed in 1996. It is located near Shukkei-en in Hiroshima, Japan. Access *Hiroden Shukkeien-mae Station * JR Hiroshima Station Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum Void 2014.jpg, Atrium of the ...

is located adjacent to the garden.

History

Construction began in 1620 during the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

at the order of

Asano Nagaakira was a Japanese samurai of the early Edo period who served as ''daimyō'' of Wakayama Domain, and was later transferred to the Hiroshima Domain. Biography Born Asano Iwamatsu, he was the son of Asano Nagamasa, who was a senior retainer of Toyo ...

, ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...

'' of the Hiroshima '' han''. Shukkei-en was constructed by Ueda Sōko, who served lord Asano as chief retainer (

karō were top-ranking samurai officials and advisors in service to the ''daimyōs'' of feudal Japan. Overview In the Edo period, the policy of ''sankin-kōtai'' (alternate attendance) required each ''daimyō'' to place a ''karō'' in Edo and anothe ...

) of the domain and as a tea master. Since the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

, the garden served as the villa of the Asano family. When under

Emperor Meiji , also called or , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession. Reigning from 13 February 1867 to his death, he was the first monarch of the Empire of Japan and presided over the Meiji era. He was the figur ...

the

Imperial General Headquarters The was part of the Supreme War Council and was established in 1893 to coordinate efforts between the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy during wartime. In terms of function, it was approximately equivalent to the United States ...

were relocated to Hiroshima, the emperor briefly lodged at the villa. The gardens were opened to the public, and in 1940 the Asano family donated them to Hiroshima Prefecture. Being a short walk from

ground zero In relation to nuclear explosions and other large bombs, ground zero (also called surface zero) is the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation. In the case of an explosion above the ground, ''ground zero'' is the point on the grou ...

of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, Shukkei-en suffered extensive damage, and then became a refuge for victims of the war. After renovations, it reopened in 1951.

Gallery

Image:HiroshimaShukkeien7264.jpg, Image:HiroshimaShukkeienLantern7324.jpg, Image:HiroshimaShukkeienYokihiLantern7331.jpg, Image:Shukkeien atomic bombing.JPG,

External links

庭園の写真 - 縮景園
(in Japanese) {{Authority control Parks and gardens in Hiroshima Gardens in Japan Gardens in Hiroshima Prefecture