Paper short abstract:

Luis Frois wrote about 16thctry Japan. Removed from religious considerations we focus on landscapes, gardens and architecture in Kyushu and the GoKinai portrayed by Frois, comparing with 16th/17th ctry byobu paintings and present Japan. Luso-Nagasaki foundation is presented as fusion urban product.

Paper long abstract:

Byobu paintings and missionary written work are good sources of 16thctry urban and landscape representation in Japan. Luis Frois writing between 1563-1597 in Portuguese (Japanese translation around 1980's) describes places in Kyushu Yokoseura, Hirado, Arye and travels north to Koyasan, Osaka, Takatsuki, Gifu, Kyoto, Nara, Sakai, Azushiyama, and Nagasaki. He compiled five volumes of the "History of Japan", one hundred letters and the Treaty of Contradictions.

When religious considerations are eliminated, Frois descriptions are rigorous and issued from surprise of contrasts between renaissance Lisbon, Goa, Malaca, Macau and Japan.

Comparing Frois texts with the 16thctry byobus confirms them as reliable sources for Japanese urban and garden landscapes studies. Frois' texts allows a retrospective analysis compared with the actual state of heritage Japanese gardens, architecture and urban design. Continuity and durability can be emphasized as the sites present long lasting ecological solutions, interesting to use in future sustainable design. Frois texts are so turned to the past as "translating " spatial descriptions to the western world, but is also points to the future as continuity lessons of spatial sustainable design.

As a case study in urban history Nagasaki seems to have sprung from a Luso-Japanese symbiotic relationship reflected in Frois's accommodation attitude. It had a double influence with the obvious precedents, Lisbon, Nara and Kyoto. Four main outstanding features recognized in Japanese city design are the grid plan on flat areas, the respect and up-keeping of any natural element within the grid, such as streams and hills, the surrounding mountains left as non-built forests area, and the fact that public open large places are non-existing in Japanese cities.

On the contrary Portuguese city design is based on hill defensive settlement as organic growth, streams are covered as sewage, and large public plazzas follow the roman tradition of the Forum. For the urban plan point of view, the making of Nagasaki as a new water-front city and its resulting fusion design, is outstanding by the fact that it encompasses both cultures, it embraces features that respect the Portuguese/European city lay-out and the Japanese way of planning cities in a unified space.