Paris, September 15 {No.2000 - 87} - Visitors to UNESCO's Japanese Garden, or "Garden of Peace", can once again admire the grace and splendour that first shone from this masterpiece by the late Japanese-American landscape architect Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). After four decades of exposure to the elements, the garden has been fully renovated and restored to its former glory. UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura will inaugurate the renovated garden on September 21.

Located in the heart of Paris, on the grounds of UNESCO Headquarters, the Japanese Garden is a haven of tranquillity and a unique combination of tradition and modernity, donated to UNESCO by the Japanese government in 1958.

The 1,700 square metre garden - with its cherry and plum trees, magnolias, lotuses and bamboo, a stream, a pond, a bridge and grassy mounds - offers the visitor a spiritual and aesthetic experience through its idealised and stylised representation of the world. It forms a unique microcosm, dotted by 80 tons of sculptural rocks selected by Noguchi and brought over from Japan.

Noguchi chose to give the traditional Japanese garden a personal twist in order to adapt the space to its modern surroundings. The upper level, in particular, has little to do with conventional Japanese gardening. But enough of the Japanese tradition remains in Noguchi's work to make the garden stand out from its setting. The result is a stark contrast between old and new, between the natural and the man-made. The hybrid nature of the garden itself reflects Noguchi's efforts to reconcile his Japanese and American cultural influences.

Closest to the Japanese tradition is the large stone and hill arrangement, which evokes the common 'Horai' (island where the hermits live) tradition. A strong Japanese influence can also be felt in Noguchi's use of rocks throughout. Noguchi believed that it is the rocks that make a garden. Plants and trees come and go, but rocks give a garden its essential quality. They are its bones.

Noguchi conceived of his Japanese Garden as a place to walk around, so that the relative value of all things within might be perceived. The raised paved area in the centre of the lower garden recalls the 'Happy Land', the land of the dead in the Buddhist religion. One arrives on it and departs from it again with time barriers of stepping stones between. It is a land of music and dancing, and can be viewed from all around the garden, and from all levels of the surrounding buildings.

At the entrance to the Japanese Garden is Noguchi's Peace Fountain. A tall source stone, the largest stone in the garden, stands in a rectangular pool with water cascading over Noguchi's mirror-image Japanese inspired calligraphy for the word 'Wa' - 'peace and harmony' in Japanese.

Jutting out from the wall directly behind the Peace Fountain is the Nagasaki Angel. The statue originally appeared on the façade of the Urakami Church in Nagasaki. It was the only part of the church spared from destruction by the explosion of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9 1945. It was donated to UNESCO by the city of Nagasaki in 1978.

Further behind the Peace Fountain, at the end of the patio, stands the cylindrical, one-story Meditation Space by contemporary Japanese architect and artist Tadao Ando. The structure rests on a slanted surface paved with granite exposed to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and subsequently cleaned for use in Ando's work. A constant flow of water now washes over the once irradiated slabs of stone.

At the opposite end of the garden, on the wall of building 3, is "Water Rhythm", a painted mosaic by French artist Jean Bazaine. Its "living" surface is achieved by its carefully chosen assortment of enamelled pieces of ceramics and stones.

The sculptural quality of the Japanese Garden can best be appreciated from the large bench near the Peace Fountain, made of a split Red Cedar from the Mac Millan Bloedel forests in British Colombia, and donated to UNESCO by the Canadian government.

Every year in May, a fish shaped wind-sock is raised on the flagpole to mark Boy's Day, a traditional Japanese festival. The garden sometimes serves as a location for Japanese tea ceremonies. It is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every weekday.

Japanese master gardener Toemon Sano the 16th recently restored the garden, in keeping with Noguchi's will. After forty years, both the soil and trees had grown weak. Restoration work, begun last September and completed in March this year, was sponsored by the National Federation of UNESCO Associations in Japan, the Cultural Foundation for Promoting the National Costume of Japan and the Commemorative Association for the Japan World Exposition (1970).

On the occasion of the Fête des Jardins de Paris, the Peace Garden will exceptionally be open to the public during the weekend, on Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 September (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.).

Journalists wishing to attend the inauguration of the renovated Japanese Garden can obtain an invitation from UNESCO's Press Service, tel. 01 45 68 17 44 or 45.