The Senganen Garden is a traditional landscape garden located along the coast of Kagoshima. Views of the bamboo groves and streams of water at this garden are significantly amplified by the borrowed scenery of Sakurajima and Kagoshima Bay also known as the art of Shakkei. Seasonal flowers as well as Buddhism artifacts, shrines and museums are available at this garden, which was originally built in 1658 by the Shimazu Clan as a primary residence, now for visitors to explore. The Shimazu Clan has been a ruling feudal lord of Japan from as early as the 12th century, until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Early adaptation towards western technology has contributed greatly for the Shimazu Clan. They are regarded as the first warriors to use foreign firearms at war, which resulted in great success and accumulation of immense wealth. Originally constructed in 1658, the Iso Residence which sits at the center of Senganen Garden provides a look at the traditional housing for the samurai elite. The current building was preserved and reconstructed in the fashion where the Shimazu Clan left it during the 1890s. Traditional tatami mats and interior house designs of the Edo period casts a strong contrast on the innovative thinking of this clan who ruled over Kagoshima Prefecture. Senganen Garden is also the site for one of Japan’s first industrial areas constructed to produce ships, cannons, glass and varies other western items at the time. Although most of the Industrial Complex have been destroyed though time, with the remaining structures including a charcoal kiln, reverberatory furnace and the Sekiyoshi Sluice Gate of Yoshino Leat designated in 2015, as an UNESCO World Heritage Site under Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution. The Ijinkan nearby the Senganen Garden, which was the residential area for foreign engineers who were commissioned by the Shimazu Clan to help design and build the first spinning cotton mills in Kagoshima, is still available for tourists to explore as an adjacent location of the World Heritage Sites of Meiji Industrial Revolution.
