The replication of Japanese landscape aesthetics in American culture

One aspect of aesthetics is the process by which a particular aesthetic evolves or comes into being. An aesthetic has two stages in its process: creating and appreciating (Cupchik 1992). This process applies to landscape aesthetics, too, in those instances where the two stages of the same process are not connected. A Japanese garden in America is such a case as would be a garden depicting the historic American West in an Asian culture.;A different aspect of aesthetic theory deals with the relationship of aesthetics to everyday life (Bourassa, 1991). To study how landscape aesthetics are applied to everyday life is helpful not only to the theoretical study of landscape architecture, but also to the practice of landscape architecture because it provides documentation of people's reactions to landscape designs. Such documentation can be used as an examining tool in landscape architectural practice, and it also can expand the vocabulary of landscape architecture in cross-cultural fields.;The Japanese Garden in the Fort Worth (Texas) Botanic Garden is selected as the focus of the thesis for two reasons: first, it is a design product of Japanese aesthetics; second, it is open to the public and used by American visitors who have American cultural backgrounds; and third, it is a site which is a part of everyday cultural life in the region. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...