Yokohama Yamate Italian Hill Garden

The Italian-yama Garden in Yokohama's Yamate district is a historic landscaped setting: an Italian consulate occupied the hill from 1880 for six years, giving the area its name, and the diplomat Sadataro Uchida's residence, the Diplomat's House, was relocated here in 1997. Around the residence a formal garden of water features and flowerbeds recovers the atmosphere of late Meiji domestic life. This intervention focuses on the waterway at the heart of the garden. Colourful floral tiles are laid on the pool bottom to reflect the blue sky, and a continuous chain of small fountains is set into the previously still watercourse to give it a three-dimensional, rhythmic pulse. Roses are planted along the waterway and on the slope, framing the project's theme, a garden of roses and radiant fountains. Lollipop-standard red roses line the water, paired with bold, landscaped roses on the Diplomat's House slope to create a new rose destination for Yokohama. From the adjacent Bluff No. 18 building, the visitor looks up at a wall-mounted fountain on which wrought-iron reliefs of roses and the Italian word bello are set. From one of the garden's terraces the visitor can see the Yokohama Bay Bridge and Minato Mirai 21; that distant harbour view, combined with the flowers below, recovers a new charm for Yokohama's foreign-hill quarter. The design area is about 0.7 hectares. Project details are limited in the source material.