Crossing-moon bridge, the story of a name

The Rikugi-en garden in Tokyo was designed as a collection of 88 views, all of them illustrating scenes described in waka poems (a type of classical Japanese poetry). The garden architect, Yoshiyasu Yanagisawa, worked for 7 years to build the garden, and for the regular visitor it would take several days to fully appreciate each scene.

The most important spot of the garden is Togetsukyo, the "Crossing-moon" bridge, representing a relatively easy to explain scene: the bridge illustrates a poem about the view of the moon moving across the sky. The unusual shape of the bridge, with the large hemispherical support combined with the reflection on the water suggests the full moon, while the horizontal beam is the imaginary line drawn by the moon's movement...