to the country's opening to the west in the middle of the 19th century. It has not been seen before that an ambitious overall presentation of the relationship between Japanese history has been made, where architecture inscribes in an analysis of the relationship between contemporary thinking and how this found its expression in the concrete works and conversely its starting point in the concrete. The project will use new photographs taken specifically for the book taken during repeated study and research stays in the country over the past several years. The book's rich illustrative drawings are also drawings for books and provide uniformity throughout the book. It is all tied together as the story of the country and its own understanding in relation to nature and its placement in the world. In addition, reproductions of contemporary artworks and individual borrowed photos will be included. Architecture and nature The gardens and their connection to the visual arts and architecture form the core of the story. They are illuminated through the periodic waves of Chinese and Korean influence through art and thought. Through the ages, they came to characterize the history of Japanese art without, however, at any time being seen as in conflict with the ethnic animistic Shintō view of life. Accordingly, the Japanese interpreted the Buddhist influence by seeking an intuitive understanding in nature. In this they gained a human insight. In nature, the Japanese throughout the ages of history found the eternal in the impermanent. This theme, perhaps more than anything else, became what they wanted to express in their visual arts, architecture, gardening and literature. It is therefore in this light that the history of architecture and gardening will be interpreted in relation to central aesthetic concepts such as imperfection, imbalance, simplicity, loneliness, poverty. Concepts articulated in the art of Zen Buddhism. Through cultural historical analysis, these will explain precisely why the Japanese cultural background demanded this articulation in art. A conceptualization that had also previously been expressed in the pre-medieval conception of nature, first through Shintōism and then in the Heian period through Kūkai's understanding of esoteric Buddhism. A perception of nature that was then also expressed in architecture in the broadest sense. A relationship as Johannes V. Jensen expressed it in 1907 at the meeting with Japan's nature