Osaka Intended For Keeps: The Ever Changing Phoenix Pavilion

Dear Issei Taro Otsuka,

“Hidden Treasure in Jackson Park”, “A tucked away oasis”, “A tranquil and hidden gem”. These are just some of the review titles from a 21st century website called Tripadvisor discussing the wonders of the Jackson Park’s Japanese Garden you helped to design and create. As you know, this garden and pavilion specifically, has gained many names over the years since the 1893 Chicago’s World Fair. These include: “Tranquility on The Wooded Island”, “The Phoenix Garden”, and “The Osaka Japanese Garden” but we will call it the Phoenix Pavilion for simplicity sake. Many people coming through Chicago find this island to be a treasure in the sense that is an unexpected quiet place within such a large and busy city. Tourists and locals alike appreciate this space, but only few tend to understand the story behind these gates, bridges, architecture, and other plant life. 

As your recall, the Ho-o-den, the general building collection, was created to emulate the symbol of Phoenix using three buildings and various pathways between them. As the years have progressed, this small exhibit has grown evolved and even been badly destroyed at one point in the 1940s. Originally intended to be a symbol of friendship between the United States and your country Japan, cherry blossoms, artwork, and religion were on full display for the 1893 fair. This exhibit designed by you, Issei Taro Otsuka, was brought to life with your counterpart George Shimoda, and the Japanese government. Beyond the ideas for the 1893 World’s Fair, Japan intended to make this exhibit a permanent gift from the Japanese government with plans on educating Americans on their innovations and accomplishments in the 12th-18th centuries of their history. Despite the origins of these gardens, the life it breathes expands beyond that of the fair and has brought in influence from artists such as Yoko Ono in the 1900s and beyond.  

Map of the pavilion and garden within Chicago in Jackson Park on the Wooded Island

After the fair ended in 1893, the garden remained standing like the everlasting relationship between Japan and the United States. When Japan first interacted with the U.S, it was due to our state of California becoming a new ratified Pacific-side state in the 1850s. This expansion of America led trade to expand to the East like in Southeast Asia, and of course Japan and the unified Korea. While America was aggressive in pursuit of Japanese trade and exports, the Japanese government was gracious in accepting and perpetuating mutually beneficial trade. Japanese ports you are familiar with like Yokohama allowed for settlements of Westerners and local Japanese people to interact and live together. In the 1860s, the Japanese delegation finally set foot in the East coast of America like in New York and New Jersey. Quite literally, Chicago also had its moment rising from the ashes since there was the Chicago fire in 1871 damaged great areas of the city. Mr. Otsuka, did this history of the fire inspire your creation of symbolic phoenix in the garden? 

Original photograph of Phoenix Pavilion during the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago 

Anyhow, you recall that when construction of the garden started, the Japanese government, invited by the U.S government prepared an elaborate plan with a large budget of almost $600,000. Your team had nearly the largest budget of any and the quick praise and help from the Japanese commissioner Seiichi Tejima negotiated with Frederick Law Olmsted. I know he was an American but you have to give him credit since he was a key landscape designer and did a fantastic job with your site through his involvement. Your other colleague, Masamichi Kuru, the architect for each of the three buildings put them to action back in Japan, and imported the full buildings to Chicago from Tokyo. I can only imagine how stressful that must have been for you all to be involved in.

After the fair was over, the garden remained and soon enough the the Chicago Park District was established during the Great Depression in the 1930s. It’s main task was to preserve and maintain the Jackson Park where the Chicago World’s had been. As for the instruction of Olmsted (our American landscaper from earlier), the whole park was to be converted into fields to allow for recreational sports like tennis, baseball for younger kids while the lagoon provided places for rowing and other leisure activities. Due to time and weathering, the Phoenix Pavilion suffered damages. Lucky for you and the pavilion, this was the project was for restoration was first spear headed by George T. Donohue another American who was involved in the landscaping industry. Impressed and grateful for the revival of the Phoenix Pavilion in 1935, Sadao Iguchi, the newly appointed Consul General of Japan at Chicago remarked, "Our people will always be grateful for what Chicago has done for this place. We revere this ground as a bit of our homeland transplanted in the heart of a great and friendly nation." It’s good to know that our countries were still very hospitable to one another. 

Restored garden bridges, waterways and pathways 

This however would not be the last time your garden would be restored or revitalized. In 1941, the event of the Pearl Harbor attacks on our state Hawaii from Japan changed many American opinions of Japan and horrifically, Japanese-Americans were removed from their homes forcibly to atone for the crimes in which they didn’t commit. Shoji Osato, one of the Osato family garden caretakers in Chicago was taken as well and as a result, your garden was left in ruins to decay and be vandalized by angry and patriotic Chicago citizens. Even with the war ending 1946 the pavillion’s destruction continued and fire engulfed it completely many times over, ruining it beyond its former recognition.

After the American-led bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and eventual treaties in 1951 your garden was still in ruins. However it drew the attention of a famed artist, Yoko Ono, in the 1960s. In the midst of the peaceful protests of the Vietnam War, Ono, a renowned artist alongside her husband, famed musician John Lennon, visited the site of your garden and soon began working on creating a her first architectural artwork dubbed the Skylanding. As an expansion to your garden, Ono created a site in the garden where metal lotus petals bloomed from the earth, modernizing the site and helping to create a tranquil area within the garden for people to find hope and peace. 

Yoko Ono's lotus artwork, The Skylanding, an addition to the garden in the 1960s 

This trend only continued as your garden was once again considered for reconstruction and renovation. Since the garden had become so overgrown due to neglect, preservation of the new birds, plant life and other animals living in the space became a strong focal point. Many people consider this to be a natural arising or rebirth from the pavilion, hence again your design and theme of the Phoenix. Eventually the towns Chicago and Osaka built stronger bonds with one another and the plans arose again for your garden to maintain its ecosystem, but be restored again. In 2002, the City of Osaka financially aided Chicago in the efforts to transform your pavilion, your garden, and new Skylanding sites to create modern representations of the new bonds between Japan and the U.S you could be proud of Mr. Otsuka. 

  Modern Spring photo of newly named Osaka Garden with blooming cherry blossoms

Because of the iconic symbolism of fire, death, rebirth and restoration being such a large theme of this garden and site, the garden itself is a bold representative state for our relationship, as Americans, with Japan. In America’s strife with the former Axis Power, the garden suffered and withered at the hands of angry and hateful people wishing to harm a symbol of your country gifted by its government and worked on by its citizens. Despite the difficult relationships we have had with Japan over the years, unknowingly you have had wonderful allies like George T. Donohue, Yoko Ono, and the vigilant watch of the Osato family. These people past your time helped the garden expand beyond that of the original design and creation of yourself, Kuru and Olmsted. The garden has flourished in many different ways despite its destruction and literal burning, and over nearly two centuries later has truly earned the name of the Phoenix Pavilion.  

Bibliography 

Rains, V. (2013). Garden Stores Worth the Trip. Country Living, 36(4). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1346787330/

Strahler, S. (2013, April 22). Phoenix rising once again? A local lawyer is hoping to restore the Japanese gardens in Jackson Park to their former glory, one cherry tree at a time. Crain’s Chicago Business.

usjapanesegardens. (2013, March 28). “Osaka Garden.” U.S. Japanese Gardens. us-japanesegardens.com/tag/osaka-garden/.