The Nishinomiya Tsutakawa Japanese Garden was completed in 1974 and symbolizes the friendship of Spokane and its sister city, Nishinomiya, Japan.
Hours: Open daily April – October, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Garden Rules
Weddings and wedding photography in the gardens are by reservation only. Please call 509.363.5455 or email us at parkopsreservations@spokanecity.org, if you have any questions.
Nishinomiya Tsutakawa Japanese Garden, 1974-1980, courtesy of Spokane Public Library’s Northwest Room
Construction for the Japanese Garden began in 1962 and was completed in 1974, just in time for the Spokane World’s Fair (Expo ‘74). The garden was originally named for Spokane’s Sister City, Nishinomiya. Later, Tsutakawa was added to the name to recognize Ed Tsutakawa, who was instrumental in forming the sister-city bond with his ancestral home of Nishinomiya and in bringing master designer Nagao Sakurai from Japan to aid in the garden’s development.
Sakurai completed his initial sketches in 1967, envisioning a Japanese tea garden with paths leading the visitor through a series of contemplative moments culminating at the tea house, a structure that was never built. Sakurai suffered a stroke while working on the garden in 1971 and passed away in 1973, so he never saw his vision completed. In 1988, the park hired Masa Mizuno to finish Sakurai’s work, and a new path through the garden was created. Instead of a tea garden that lacked a tea house, Mizuno revised the garden into a more traditional strolling garden, with greater emphasis on the view corridors.2
As the plans for the garden gained traction in the community, people became more interested in donating to the project. A priest from St. Augustine made a generous donation, and Wasaburo Kiri, a dishwasher employed by the Davenport hotel, donated his life savings of $10,000. Mr. Kiri died a short time later from cancer, and the pond was named in his honor.
As one enters the Japanese Garden, threshold stones (norigoe-ishi) within the gates symbolize the transition from the secular world into the garden. At the main (west) gate, the norigoe-ishi are of local basalt. Paths (yuhodo) throughout the garden are neither straight nor symmetrical, creating a sense of gentle movement as the visitor encounters a series of viewpoints.
From the main gate, the entrance path widens to embrace the view of the pond (ike), presenting a “stone beach’ (ishihama) of cobblestones set in concrete that leads to the water’s edge. Two rectangular concrete platforms set into the ishihama on the southwest bank act as “viewing stones” (nozokimi-ishi), a stable place from which to admire the pond. Large basalt “garden rocks” (niwa-ishi) are scattered along the water’s edge, within the ishihama, and at various places within the pond. The pond is irregular and asymmetrical in shape, with a central island (shima). Both the pond and island shorelines are lined with a combination of basalt and short pieces of circular wood posts reminiscent of bamboo. The island features a Japanese maple, Austrian pine, Scots pine, mugo pine, and yew.
Important features within the garden include the washing basin (chōzubachi), traditionally used to purify the hands, forehead, and mouth, again symbolic of leaving the secular world behind. Water from the bamboo waterspout (kakehi) pools in the basin’s water hole (mizuana). The chōzubachi is surrounded by a seemingly natural circle of rough basalt stones in varying heights, accentuated with “chestnut cobbles” (kuri-ishi) in the declivity surrounding the basin. Plantings of juniper and pine accentuate the ishigumi (the arrangement of rocks in a Japanese garden), and a freestanding pedestal-style stone lantern (tōrō) is nestled within the greenery. A side path adjacent to the chōzubachi leads to the Fosseen Lantern, a gift of Mayor Yoneji Yagi Isamu Otani’s family and the people of Nishinomiya, Spokane’s sister city. Donated to the garden in 1989, at which time it was between 100 and 130 years old, the lantern stands off-center in a circular enclosure of tall ponderosa pines, medium-height Japanese maples, and low-growing juniper and dwarf rhododendron shrubs.3 Additional basalt steps lead to the gazebo (azumaya), donated by Spokane’s Japanese community in 1973. The waterfall (taki) was dedicated in 1970 and is accentuated by an ishigumi of tall stones that decrease in size, emphasizing the drop of the waterfall to the pond’s flat plane.
The current bridge, attributed to Debra Clem-Olson, was installed in 1998. The path continues north to a shed-roof arbor covered with clematis, the north gate, and then curves west around the north end of the pond to the main gate.
Flora in the Japanese garden emphasizes evergreens, which symbolize eternity and perseverance, such as Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), western red cedar (Thuja plicata), hemlock, juniper, and towering native ponderosa pine. The garden also features a grove of European beech (Fagus sylvatica), Japanese maples, Katsura trees, boxwood, larger PJM rhododendrons and dwarf rhododendrons, and barberry (Berberis). The garden also highlights numerous native basalt, which accentuate the gentle movement of the pathways and are often surrounded by blankets of green moss.
The National Register of Historic Places Application for the National Parks Service (reformatted for clarity).
2 Robert Herold, “Lost in Translation?”, The Pacific Northwest Inlander, September 19, 2012.
3 Edward M. Tsutakawa, letter to the US Customs Service, Seattle, Washington, RE: Importation of Gift Lanterns from Nishinomiya, Japan, July 18, 1989.
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808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
