terunobu fujimori’s ku-an

Terunobu Fujimori’s works are inseparable from Japanese history and ritual, though with contradictions: he states clearly in the introduction of this book: (1)

‘1. The building should not resemble anyone else’s building, past or present, or any style that has developed since the Bronze Age.

2. Natural materials should be used on parts of the building that are visible, and at times plants should be incorporated in the building, so as to harmonize the building with nature.’

This is Fujimori’s ‘International Vernacular.’ Yet, Ku-an (Right Angle Teahouse) is one of Fujimori’s many teahouses clearly inspired by vernacular teahouses and his infatuation with tea master Rikyu, one of the first to popularise the Japanese tea ceremony. This teahouse is wedged between two walls in a Kyoto temple, and sits upon a tree column. Mud and straw are plastered over (well-hidden) structural plywood, chopped log rafters are left exposed, and copper gutters are hand-formed into shape. Fujimori’s teahouses are always constructed by himself or amateurs. An uneven ladder with a small trapdoor is the entry to the ceremony, a common vernacular motif. Inside, walls are pasted with oyster shell lime, and morning light pours in through a window facing the temple. This is a small space for sitting and ceremony. The tea master prepares and serves tea for visitors around a sunken pot, where ceremony can be carried out for hours.

(1) Strangely, Fujimori is self-critical of nearly every project of his in this monograph, and contradicts himself at every level. It makes the reading incredibly insightful and refreshing compared to a more conventional monograph.

Excerpts

Ichiya-tei was my first freestanding tearoom, but I started designing the Ku-an much earlier. Ku-an is located at Tokushoji Temple, which is situated in the middle of Kyoto and has a back garden surrounded by high walls. The chief priest Hitoshi Akino wanted a teahouse in this back garden, and he wanted to do the construction work by himself.

The back garden is narrow and wet, so early on I decided to attach this teahouse to an internal corner of the garden and raised it off the ground. On my earlier sketches there is a memo saying "something that looks like Morikage Kuzumi."

Morikage Kuzumi is a painter from the early Edo era (1603-1867), whose representative piece is called "Yugao-dana Nouryouzu Byobu (Enjoying the Evening Cool Under a Gourd Trellis)." In that painting, at evening twilight a parent and a child from a poor but happy samurai family are laying peacefully on a straw mat under a trellis of white flowered gourds hung from the edge of the eaves. They are relaxing together, looking at something. By simply putting a straw mat under a gourd trellis, the space is defined as an architectural space even though it is not indoors and this space is open to the surroundings.

In the back garden of Tokushouji Temple I wanted to create an interesting architectural space just like Kuzumi's painting. The dwelling in Kuzumi's painting is humble, and strong winds would send its mud walls, split bamboo wickerwork, bamboo trellis, and the straw mat on the ground all flying. However, even though everything is blown away, they could still cut bamboo from a nearby grove and create a wickerwork of split bamboo. As the wickerwork depicts, this paining shows a kind of temporary architecture created in an ad hoc and amateurish manner. I wanted to bring this kind of amateurishness and temporariness into Ku-an.

Rikyu referenced poor dwellings that appear in Kuzumi's paintings as a basis for establishing forms for tea ceremonies. Rikyu assembled a small tearoom on a external "engawa" corridor with a wood floor. He gathered storm doors, shoji screens, tatami mats, and pieces of scrap lumber and created a space. This temporary handmade tearoom was called "Kakoi (enclosure)." When I thought about Kuzumi, I did not know this old story about Rikyu's kakoi. However, in the end, I was getting closer to Rikyu's idea.

[…]

The tea set is not for powdered tea, which descended from Rikyu, but for leaf tea. A teahouse for leaf tea does not have a fireplace in the floor. The floor, wall and ceiling are all pasted with oyster shell lime.

[…]

It was tough to finish the wall so that it looks like a mud wall. After plastered mortar over plywood boards, then I had to plaster real mud. I mixed straw fiber for and a little bit of grew in the real mud. After I plastered this mud briefly with a flatiron, then I made the surface rough using my hand. After repeating this overtime, I could achieve a texture that looks like a mud wall. When it gets rain, the surface comes off little bit.

From Terunobu Fujimori, Fujimori Terunobu Architecture, TOTO, 2007.