A cross-cultural comparison of preference for Korean, Japanese and Western landscape styles

While there is a substantial empirical literature in landscape preference, little emphasis has been placed on cultural variation. This study is cross-cultural in two respects. Preferences of Koreans and Western tourists in Korea were compared. In addition, three landscape styles (Korean, Japanese, and Western) were examined. For each style, the landscape elements of water, vegetation, and rock were included for analysis. Forty scenes representing combinations of these landscape styles and landscape elements were used in a photo-questionnaire. The 660 respondents (550 Korean people and 110 Western tourists in Korea) were asked to rate each scene on a five-point preference scale. Guttman-Lingoes Smallest Space Analysis III (SSA-III) and ICLUST were used to reduce the data set to meaningful and manageable groups.;The research results showed both similarities and differences between the preferences of the cross-cultural groups. Both Koreans and Westerners seemed to prefer landscapes of Japanese style to either Korean or Western styles. Respondents also preferred landscape styles foreign to their own culture over styles derived from their own cultural backgrounds. Furthermore, the existence of a specific landscape element, water, vegetation, or rock in a scene seemed to have a powerful influence on preferences of the respondents regardless of cultural differences. Water in a landscape scene was found to most strongly enhance preference for the scene. By contrast, the presence of rock in a scene seemed to decrease the preference for the scene.;The major differences between Korean and Western groups were found in perceptual categories. Korean people seemed to be more directed toward landscape elements while Western tourists were more inclined to perceive landscape style as a coherent cluster. In addition, the Western group had higher preference score for each scene than the Korean group.;Based on the findings, some design implications for the landscape design process were also suggested by the juxtaposition of elements, repetition, visual access, focalization, and existence and softness of certain landscape elements that were seen in the photo-questionnaire.