Research Center for Japanese Garden Art and Historical Heritage

Announcing the Intensive Seminar in Kyoto 2025

We are very happy to announce that the Japanese Garden Intensive Seminar in Kyoto will be held again in the fall 2025.
We will prepare for reopening the seminar during the year of 2024.
We will keep you updated from now on regarding the schedule, the contents, the tuition and other conditions of the seminar.
Please stay tuned with us,and we are very much looking forward to meeting you all in the fall 2025!

The Research Center for Japanese Garden Art and Historical Heritage is pleased to announce the 20th annual English language intensive course in the history, design theory, landscape ecology, artistic sense, and practice of garden making in Japan. We have been running the Seminar successfully for 20 years, and have been joined by more than 450 participants from all over the world – from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States. The international character of the participants has over the years increasingly stimulated the global character and contents of our teaching, making the Seminar a full and rewarding event for everyone involved, including the staff of the Center. The program is framed within the context of the Graduate School of the Kyoto University of Art and Design: there is ample room for an individual learning experience for each participant, while contents are academic at the same time.

About the Program

The two-week program offers serious students from abroad a number of unique opportunities to study Japanese gardens. Fundamental to the learning experience of the seminar is the site. Apart from on-site lectures in gardens - some not open to the public - the seminar will also include on-site sessions with professional specialists to experience, first hand, the techniques and processes of Japanese garden design and construction. Some days will be divided between site visits and lectures on campus, but there will be several all-day excursions as well. There is a chance for you as a participant to tell us about your experiences, or discuss questions you are facing in a colloquium that is part of the seminar. Plenty of resources (documentations) will be provided by the Center. You have time to visit gardens and sites on your own in and around Kyoto, for which some days in the program are open. At the end of the course a garden building workshop provides an educational experience summarizing your personal learning experience in form of a little garden that you will build yourself under guidance of our staff. In order to provide maximum personal attention, we strive for a group limited to not more than 25 students.