ByCraig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
The paths in The Contemporary Museum garden curve,
to create the suggestion that there is always
something just out of sight.
SET on Makiki Heights, the very center of old money and conservative families, is the The Contemporary Museum, a collection of always thought provoking, frequently brilliant and occasionally goofy art created since 1940. Artful setting
for museumMost of the art is installed inside the museum, which was built in 1925 as the home of Mrs. Charles Montague Cooke, who needed a new residence. She had given the site of her former home on South Beretania Street to the Honolulu Academy of Arts, a museum she founded and built.
Mrs. Cooke's daughter Alice and her husband Philip E. Spalding inherited the property in 1934, and bequeathed it to the Honolulu Academy of Arts in 1968. The academy operated it as an annex, primarily for the exhibition of the James Michener collection of Japanese woodblock prints, until 1978. During that period it was known as Spalding House. It was later sold by the academy and was eventually acquired by Thurston Twigg-Smith, who in 1968 offered it as a site for The Contemporary Museum. It underwent extensive interior renovation, and was opened to the public in October, 1988.
But not all of the art is inside the museum. Several of the largest pieces of sculpture, those that should be viewed in an open area and that can withstand wind and rain, are exhibited outdoors in the 3.5 acre garden surrounding the museum. The garden from the beginning has been recognized by the museum's trustees as another work of art, a place for contemplation and renewal.
The gardens, according to the archives of the museum, were created between 1928 and 1941 by the Reverend K.H. Inagaki, a Christian minister of Japanese ancestry who had an interest in landscape design.
"Rev. Inagaki was confined to a wheelchair from the beginning of the project," said Louise Lanzilotti, curator of education at the museum. "He would sit at the top of the garden and direct the workers in the placement of rocks and plants and trees."
Inagaki designed the garden along the Japanese principles of interpreting "shizen" or nature. "In Japanese, 'to make a garden' translates as 'to arrange stones,' " the archives state. Given a free hand by Mrs. Cooke, the semi-invalid Inagaki spent 6 years establishing the garden. In those years, he transformed a barren ravine below the sloping lawns of the estate into a series of terraces planted in shades of green.
"It was intended as a meditative garden, a place of peace, so there is very little color other than green in it," Lanzilotti said. It is known as Nuumealani, meaning heavenly terraces, and it is threaded with curved paths that have been compared to the unrolling of a Japanese scroll painting. Asked why his paths curved out of sight, Inagaki told the visitor that in nature there is always the suggestion of something beyond what is seen, an extension and a new vision.
In the same philosophy of the partial presentation of a view rather than a flat-out 180 degree vista, Inagaki directed the planting of what is now a huge monkeypod tree on the lawn below the terrace. It has been artfully pruned by a genius so that the view from Diamond Head to downtown Honolulu is partly blocked by the enormous canopy of the tree and its gently moving leaves. It is far more impressive than the open view would be. But keeping it pruned to maintain just that shape is an ongoing and major expense.
The Contemporary Museum is now involved in a campaign "To Perpetuate the Spalding House Site for the Contemporary Museum." Its goal is $8 million, of which $4.2 million has been pledged. The latest gift is a $500,000 contribution from the Atherton Family Foundation to establish the Fund to Perpetuate the Gardens of the Contemporary Museum, to maintain the beauty and serenity of the grounds.
The garden is maintained by three workmen and an overseer who keep the paths raked, the landscape trimmed into circular shapes in the manner of a Japanese garden, and keep the entire 3.5 acres weed free.
To walk along the serpentine of pathways is an experience of peace. The only sounds are the songs of birds, the muted voices of other visitors, the laughter of children and the scrape of the rakes on the constantly tended planting. On a hot August afternoon, The Contemporary Museum gardens are a beautiful place to visit. And you can also go inside and look at man-made art.
Grounds for enjoyment
What: The Contemporary Museum
Gardening Calendar
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