Saratoga News

Kiyoshi Yasui

Architect speaks at Hakone Gardens

Kiyoshi Yasui, the 15th-generation Japanese architect who designed Hakone Gardens' Cultural Education Center, will give a slide presentation Feb. 25 from 2 to 5 p.m. at Hakone.

Yasui is a vice president of Yasuimoku Komuten Co. Ltd. His family can trace the company back to 1688 in records in the Muko Shrine. The company deals in both traditional Japanese and modern designs and specializes in shrine/palace carpentry.

In this country, Yasuimoku designed the Japanese Wing of New York's Metropolitan Museum, transplanted a turn-of-the-century house from Japan to the Boston Museum, and built the teahouse for the Nichi Bei Kai in San Francisco, as well as Hakone's Cultural Education Center and bamboo park. Yasui has designed Japanese sister city gardens in San Antonio, Texas, and Guadalajara, Mexico.

In Japan, the company is credited with the rebuilding of the Muku Shrine, construction of the Koyo #6 Elementary School, and the new library and museum in Muko-shi, Saratoga's sister city.

His talk, titled "The Japanese Garden: A Traditional Architect's Perspective," will include slides of Katsura Palace in Kyoto, a 350-year-old imperial villa which his company spent 12 years restoring, and of Kumamoto-En, a sister-city garden in San Antonio.

Yasui was friends with Tanso Ishihara, former caretaker at Hakone, and is a frequent visitor. Bruce Parkinson, president of the Japan Bamboo Society of Saratoga, says he has been a "leading spirit" behind the creation of the bamboo society and the sister-city relationship between Saratoga and Muko-shi.

His talk will be followed by an introduction to soba, Japanese buckwheat noodles, by Shigeyuki Narita, managing director of Omron's Human Renaissance Institute.

Co-hosts for the program are the Hakone Foundation and the Japan Society of Northern California. Admission is $10. A catered reception and dinner will follow at 7 p.m.; tickets are $35. For more information, call the Hakone Foundation, 741-4994, Shizue Tomlinson, 255-6345, or the Japan Society, (415) 986-4383.