Page 61 - Flaunt 175 - Diana

dens’ for this editorial, sees the four walls of a room as possessing a different kind of potential and is looking for a way to transform the convention. “If I could make anything,” he says, “I would really like to make an outside that exists within a room.” This no- tion derives from centuries of Japanese architecture which have sought to do something in the same spirit. He continues, “Some- times, the scenery is cut out like a painting, and sometimes it is a ‘borrowed landscape’, and sometimes it is a ‘veranda’ that blurs the border, connecting the inside and outside.”
In places where gardens are not commonplace, like the busy districts of Tokyo or the crowded streets of New York, these ‘inte- rior gardens’ create the possibility for anyone to harness the same fantastical and utopian energy of a nurtured outdoor respite. “The garden has a strong spiritual meaning,” Iwatake remarks, “and I think it is a symbol of overflowing from a cramped place, and getting out of reality. The place where I find the most peace
and rest is changing lately. I am a typical Japanese person, in the sense that I love working, so my office has been a healing and exciting place for me. But, right now, I really want to get outside. It’s hard to describe specifics of what that entails, but it’s a place like the ocean, or the mountains. It’s somewhere that I wouldn’t have thought to explore before, but now I want to go outside and feel it.”
Iwatake wants to create richer interior spaces by taking cues from the expansive outdoors, and in order to do so, he must em- brace nature and its limitless healing. Having been through such an extreme experience commencing last March, this ambition is something to which we can all relate. We can also all relate to the reconsideration of our personal spaces that’s occurred. After all, it could be said that it’s not a garden until we tend it and nurture its growth, and for Iwatake, there’s no reason this garden can’t exist inside, as well as outside, our homes.
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