The following announcement came from Cindy Mullins, Membership Marketing Manager of FCCJ:
“MIREI SHIGEMORI-MODERNIZING THE JAPANESE GARDEN”
By Christian Tschumi and Markuz Wernli Saito, Photographer/designer
Tuesday January 24, 2006. 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm
(The speech by Markuz Wernli Saito and Q&A will be in English.)
New media and the Web influence how we share and convey knowledge. Even reading patterns in books are changing which contain more visuals and eclectic information structures. Markuz will take the audience through the design process of his recently published book and examine how various parts of the contents converge into one coherent publication. The audience is invited to bring in printed samples, which integrate image and text to open up the discussion.
The book presented is a highly visual monograph on Mirei Shigemori (1896-1975), who was the imaginative creator of very special gardens and a scholar trained in painting, flower arranging, and the tea ceremony. Shigemori is admired up to this day for his contemporary designs, the result of his life’s objective to restore the evolution of the Japanese garden.
“The book is well-packaged with attractive photos and helpful illustrations that show various garden layouts. Of particular note is a splendid two page graphical timeline of Shigemori’s life and work. Assembled by the book’s designer, Markus Wernli Saito, the timeline is a masterful display of visual and numerical data,” commented Douglas M. Roth, The Japanese Garden Journal, September 2005.
“Consummately illustrated with a Japanese disdain for the bright, sunlit photography common to Western titles on the Japanese garden, the book profiles 10 of Shigemori’s best known works, many of the most radical executed in the last decade of his life,” commented Stephen Mansfield, The Japan Times, November 6, 2005.
Markuz Wernli Saito is a photographer and interdisciplinary artist from Switzerland working in Kyoto and San Francisco. With a classic background in graphic design and fascinated by the dialectics of humans and their environment, he developed user interfaces for software and new media companies in California. Markuz works on assignments for publications worldwide (Stone Bridge Press/Berkeley, Reaktion Books/London, Hilton Magazine/Geneva), and is a lecturer at Kyoto University of Art and Design.
RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED!
A dinner will be served at a cost of 1,750 yen (including tax). Sign up now at the reception desk (3211-3161) or online at http://www.fccj.or.jp To he.lp us plan the proper seating and food preparation, please reserve in advance, preferably by noon of the day of the event. Those without reservations will be turned away once available seats are filled. Reservations cancelled less than 24 hours in advance will be charged in full.
