APR 2019
PEN ONLINE | THE JAPANESE GARDEN (FR)
The book by Sophie Walker (…) shares a hundred concrete examples and as many beautiful images to reveal, through rich and precise explanations, another dimension of the Japanese garden.
DEC 2018
GARDENS ILLUSTRATED | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
One of the twelve books of the year | Sophie Walker has assembled a starry line-up of essayists to bolster what would be an impressive book even without the brief contributions of artist Anish Kapoor, mathemetician Marcus du Sautoy and architects John Pawson and Tadao Ando.
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NOV 2018
WALLPAPER’S HOT PICK | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
[A] book [that] explores the art of garden making in Japan, including Shinto shrines, tea gardens and contemporary Zen designs
GARDENS ILLUSTRATED | THE BUTTS
Grasslands: Ornamental grasses and a geometric path create a calm space in this London garden designed by Sophie Walker. […] Sophie’s solution was radical. Using the clearance of the trees and the light that was let in as a starting point, she set out to create something completely different to what had gone before.
OCT 2018
SALON (Russia) | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
Under the green textile cover hides a detailed interpretation of the philosophy, history, design and concept of this Asian art. What is more important - this book is more responsible for the question "why", and not "how."
SEP 2018
THE JAPANESE GARDEN | CHINESE EDITION RELEASE
Sophie Walker’s The Japanese Garden is released in Chinese, making it the fourth language available for the book.
JUL 2018
BORDE HILL ROUND DELL INAUGURATION
Envisioned by Sophie Walker, who is the youngest female winner of a Gold Medal for the Young Designer of the Year at the Chelsea Flower Show, it represents a canoe intrepidly exploring the wild sub-tropical jungles in search of rare plants.
JUN 2018
P.J REDOUTÈ BOOK PRIZE
The Japanese Garden by Sophie Walker won the Historical category for the P.J Redouté Garden Book Prize organized by Château de Lude. Among the jury Mrs François Pinault and Marc Mennessier, curator of the Garden section of Le Figaro.
GARDEN DESIGN JOURNAL
Sophie Walker on the meaning and aesthetics of wabi-sabi
ARCHITECTURE NOW | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
Sophie Walker’s hefty tome, The Japanese Garden, is focused on the field’s highest levels – the garden as a prompt for spiritual, philosophical and poetic contemplation.
MAY 2018
TALK | SOPHIE WALKER IN CONVERSATION WITH HENDRIK DRIESSEN
In a conversation with De Pont's director Hendrik Driessen, exclusively for visitors to the museum, landscape gardener Sophie Walker will explain how she arrived at her design and her choices of plants for her garden celebrating De Pont's twenty-fifth anniversary.
APR 2018
FINANCIAL TIMES | HOW TO SPEND IT
Zen is a talking point once again as a book by British landscape designer Sophie Walker, “The Japanese Garden”, brings its ancient practices to life.
TAEHWA RIVER GARDEN PARK (Korea)
[…] A garden of reflection, a garden which celebrates the moon – an absent, imagined presence during most daylight hours. The garden therefore refers to a poetic vision which ties human presence to landscape, nature and the cosmos. In this 21st Century urban setting of Ulsan city, the garden seeks to evoke personal, historical and literary memory and allusion.
IL MANIFESTO (Italy) | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
As an art historian but more specifically as a young, award-winning garden designer, Sophie Walker offers in her richly illustrated book an analysis of the historial evolution of the Japanese garden (…) With attention to Western heralds from Walter Gropius to Richard Long, Walker’s essay traces the history of a “style” permeated by mystical knowledge.
MAR 2018
TALK | WAY WITH WORDS
The Japanese Garden Revealed | Sophie Walker strolls into the art, culture and aesthetics of the Japanese garden, looking at reflections on still water, the use of borrowed scenery, the placing of a path and the symbolism of a courtyard garden at the literary festival Words by the Water, Cumbria
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WORLD OF INTERIORS | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
A desire to engage more fully not just with Japanese but all gardens provides an excellent motive for immersion in this book. [...] Lit by historic anecdotes, Walker guides us through Buddhist temple gardens, ones for tea, and contemporary designs in ten themed chapters, each with an introductory essay followed by well-captioned photographs.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
This book isn't so much a "how-to" for Japanese gardens as a "why".
NAV NEWS (Netherlands) | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
[…] a Western perspective on a typical Japanese phenomenon that screams for a study because of its singularity […] Sophie Walker, a garden designer with a background in art history, approaches the gardens from a number of themes that she links to Japanese and Western cultural history.
FEB 2018
GARDEN DESIGN JOURNAL | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
A challenging read, but in a good way. It’s the deeper meanings that suffuse Japanese gardens that set them apart from those in the West, and this book helps to unlock this intriguing culture.
GARDENISTA | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
[...] the perfect gift: : The cover is an automatic candidate for Instagram, but its contents [...] are most superlative.
MANDARIN ORIENTAL
Here, Sophie Walker chooses her top horticultural spots within an hour of Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo. From bamboo groves to an urban homage to Canada, there is much to please the eye and soothe the soul.
JAN 2018
TALK | SOPHIE WALKER AT PALAIS DE TOKYO, FRANCE
Sophie Walker and Jean de Loisy engage a dialogue on her recently published book The Japanese Garden.
AD ARCHITECTURE (France) | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
From imperial estates to Zen creations, landscape artist Sophie Walker introduces us to the art of the Japanese garden, its thousand-years history and its many facets.
WALLPAPER* | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
Insight into the enigmatic nature of the Japanese garden is revealed beneath a dark green fabric covered book written by garden designer Sophie Walker and published by Phaidon. ‘The Japanese Garden’ covers the history, design and concepts behind this unique Asian art form through a charmingly detailed narrative that varies in pace from thematic chapters, to intimate essays and photography inside which the reader can get lost.
GARDENS ILLUSTRATED | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
Garden designer Sophie Walker has assembled a starry line-up of essayists to bolster what would be a seriously impressive book even without the brief contributions of artist Anish Kapoor, mathemetician Marcus du Sautoy and architects John Pawson and Tadao Ando.
DEC 2017
LE FIGARO (France) | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
Writer, landscaper, art historian, Sophie Walker has this combination of the serious and the fantastical which is the secret magic of English charm. Her book is the fruit of ardent research and of an obsession with simple perfection. It defines the principles and the philosophy which inspire these gardens, which are so different from those of the British Isles.
LIBÉRATION (France) | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
To abandon oneself while scrupulously respecting certain codes: to reconcile these two imperatives, is it possible for us, Westerners? And, assuming we get there, do we feel pleasure? In each chapter of The Japanese Garden, a book of pictures as zen as the texts, the landscape painter Sophie Walker stresses the tension between these two commands.
NEW YORK TIMES | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
"Sophie Walker’s The Japanese Garden is an ambitious survey, set in a framework that’s both historical and thematic (“Death, Tea and the Garden,” for instance, which sounds like something Thomas Mann would have enjoyed). ...elegant photographs are accompanied by impressively eccentric essays. (...) I wish this book could be three times as long and as large."
SHAKKEI | JAPANESE GARDEN SOCIETY
If [The Japanese Garden] only comprised the images it would be “highly recommended” – with Sophie Walker’s text it would become “almost essential” – but with the additional essays it becomes a “no-brainer”: we should all have a copy.
FINANCIAL TIMES | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
"Walker explains how such sophistication elevates these gardens to high art. In her view, garden making in the west lacks creative ambition whereas the gardens of Japan often have a greater depth."
TOWN & COUNTRY | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
This engaging book...offers fresh insight into the art of the Japanese garden through a collection of Shinto shrines, Buddhist temple gardens, Imperial gardens, tea gardens and contemporary designs.
IL FATTO QUOTIDIANO (Italy) | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
In The Japanese Garden by Sophie Walker, the evocative athmosphere is encased in the contaxt of the Asian culture, where avery detail takes a deep meaning.
RADIOLIBRI (Italy) | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
Gardening… is presented as a true art form in the beautiful volume published by L’Ippocampo which we have chosen for you this week, The Japanese Garden by Sophie Walker. She herself is a garden maker, the author introduces her book with these words: ‘Refined, the garden is an ancient and powerful cultural space, esoteric and mysterious...'
LA REGIONE (Switzerland) | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
The Japanese garden encloses within itself poetry, painting, architecture, mathematical precision, religious and philosophical abstractions. All these aspects are visually and conceptually dealt with in the splendid book we advise you to give this Christmas: The Japanese Garden by Sophie Walker… It is not an illustrated book, it is not an essay, it is not a splendid object in Japanese-style hardcover: it is all these things together, something to grow in the garden of your books.
NOV 2017
THE JAPANESE GARDEN BOOK LAUNCH
The Japanese Garden book launch at Victoria and Albert Museum, London, following Sophie Walker's public lecture
DIE SPIEGEL | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
"The shooting star of horticulture, (...) her book is an essay, collection of material, cultural-historical and landscape architectural contemplation of a phenomenon that has shaped a generation of artists and intellectuals. Sophie Walker approaches Far Eastern garden art from several directions simultaneously: systematically as a landscape designer and associatively as an admirer.
MONOCLE | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
Weekend Read: Sophie Walker on The Japanese Garden | Sunday Brunch | Chapter 4
GARDEN DESIGN ONLINE | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
Books: The Japanese Garden | In Depth | "There are many books on Japanese gardens, but not many that let you know with clarity what it all means. (...) a unique take on the meaning behind Japanese design, and you'll come away with a deep appreciation"
THE SPECTATOR | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
The Japanese Garden by Sophie Walker | Garden books of the year
RECKLESS GARDENER | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
"This beautifully designed book will certainly open the reader’s eyes to the cultural wonder that is the Japanese garden as well as explaining so much behind its conception as well as adding an in-depth appreciation behind meaning and understanding "
AMUSE | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
The Japanese Garden: "This isn’t just a book for keen gardeners, it’s a source of art and design ideas and concepts for anyone in need of inspiration and visual stimulation "
ANOTHER MAGAZINE | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
Seven Serene Japanese Gardens to Visit
ELLE DECORATION SPAIN | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
"El Jardìn Japonés": Sophie Walker's The Japanese Garden featured | ELLE Decoration Spain | November
ELLE DECORATION UK | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
"Meditative Nature": Sophie Walker's The Japanese Garden feature | ELLE Decoration UK
JOHN SANDOE BOOKS | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
John Sandoe: 13 Books for Christmas - The Japanese Garden
OCT 2017
TELEGRAPH | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
The Japanese Garden: Sophie Walker feature by Alice Vincent
METROPOLIS | THE JAPANESE GARDEN
The Secret Beauty, Terror and Power of Japanese Gardens
HOMES & GARDENS | THE BUTTS
"Blades of Glory": the garden designed by Sophie Walker at Sheila and Christopher Richards’ 17th-century house
SEP 2017
FINANCIAL TIMES | DE PONT MUSEUM
Tilburg's De Pont Museum has unveiled a monumental new sculpture by Anish Kapoor, a gift commemorating the museum's twenty-fifth anniversary installed in an extensive water garden designed specifically for it by landscape architect Sophie Walker.
DE PONT MUSEUM INAUGURATION
Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands opens Sophie Walker's garden at De Pont Museum, Tilburg, Netherlands
AUG 2017
SELFBUILDER + HOMEMAKER
A unique exploration of the art and beauty of the Japanese garden, spanning 800 years of fascinating cultural history
APR 2017
GARDENS ILLUSTRATED |BORDE HILL
Sophie Walker is creating an immersive experience for visitors to Borde Hill Garden near Haywards Heat in West Sussex
JAN 2017
ARCHITECTS JOURNAL | HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL COMPETITION
Team Zaha Hadid Architects, Anish Kapoor and Sophie Walker shortlisted for UK Holocaust Memorial Competition | AJ Review
JAN 2016
THE GUARDIAN
Sophie Walker, Eileen Hogan and Clare Willsdon discuss plants and gardens for "Gardens in Art: Sow, Grow, Repeat" at the Royal Academy of Arts
FAST COMPANY | CAVE PAVILION
A magical garden in a box on the streets of London: Sophie Walker's Cave Pavilion
JUN 2014