Manipulating the physical: water's body and soul

The Japanese dry garden apart, water has been an essential ingredient in all garden-making. From its sources in agricultural and other modes of food production, water has been used to irrigate and maintain a host of necessary functions, some of which, like the water wheel in Mediterranean cultures [1], have been (and still are) crucial elements of agricultural cultivation.

But the other crucial feature of water, unless it is manipulated in some way by human agency, is its capacity to seek the path of least resistance. It may wear away rocks and soils, but essentially it seeks to find the easier and least resistant path through the local elements. The manipulation of water, then, in designed landscapes is a cultural mode of soliciting from water its best features, drawing out its performative aspects. But the features deemed ‘best’ are the result of a whole range of objectives that transcend physical properties to communicate and exploit specific and very local cultural capabilities.