On 20 July the Italian Cultural Institute in Tokyo is organising a Conference on the history of the garden surrounding the Italian Embassy.
The building located on a hill in Mita, Minato-ku, is a precious place from a historical viewpoint: formerly the residence of the daimyo of Matsudaira in the Edo period, it is surrounded by a vast garden of high cultural value and includes a pond. Rebuilt after the damage caused by World War II, the building was completed in 1965 thanks to architects Pier Francesco Borghese and Masamasa Murata. The garden, which escaped the damage of war, has retained its original appearance even though it has a number of stratifications compared to the original design.
The Italian Ambassador, Gianluigi Benedetti, initiated a scientific research project to clarify the historical and cultural value of the garden and restore it to its original landscape form. The creation of the research team was entrusted to Architect Jinnai Hidenobu, who gathered around him a team of scholars from the Edo Tokyo Research Centre of Hosei University and the Department of Landscape Architecture Science of Tokyo University of Agriculture.
Therefore, in January 2022, under the guidance of an interdisciplinary research team including experts on history of architecture and history of gardens, landscape, environment and water circulation and ecosystems (trees, vegetation and underwater life), an innovative project was launched to uncover the entire extent of this historic garden. The results of this work will be presented at the Conference hosted in the Auditorium of the Institute of Culture. The speakers are Japanese engineers, architects, agronomists and landscape architects.
