Aizanso Tea House

About the Aizanso Tea House

The Aizanso Tea House (愛山荘茶室, Aizansō Chashitsu) is a single-storey timber Chashitsu built around 1928 east of the kura zashiki at Aizanso in Wakatake-cho, Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture. It was refitted later in the Showa period and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2017.

It consists of a four-and-a-half-mat tea room and a Mizuya preparation room reached along a short passage. The roof is sheet steel, and the building area is 33 square metres. The national database dates the refit to the later Showa period, between 1966 and 1989.

With the waiting arbor to its southwest and the kura zashiki next door, the Aizanso Tea House completes the corner of the estate set aside for the tea ceremony around 1928.

Why it was registered

The Aizanso Tea House was registered as a model of good design.

The building is made from fine timber, but it mixes in knotty round logs, red pine posts with the bark left on, and bamboo, which give it a rustic edge. Setting dressed timber beside wood that looks as if it came straight from the hillside is a habit of Sukiya-zukuri tea architecture.

Its paper-screened windows are unusually large, which makes it open and bright by the standards of small tea rooms. The national description praises it as a tea house that, together with the kura zashiki, shows variety within a neat and orderly design.

What to look for

Bark and knots

Look at the posts and the timbers around the alcove of the Aizanso Tea House. Red pine with its bark still on and logs with the knots left showing sit among straight, planed members, and that contrast is what gives the room its character.

The windows

For a four-and-a-half-mat room the shoji windows are big, and light spreads evenly through the paper. When the garden is green, the screens take on its colour.

With the kura zashiki

The Aizanso Tea House makes most sense seen together with the kura zashiki to its west. Guests would be received in the storehouse room and then cross the garden path to the tea room.

Seeing it

The official website does not say how the Aizanso Tea House is used today. If you want to see inside, contact the restaurant beforehand.

The exterior can be seen from the garden. From the waiting arbor to the southwest you can follow the path a tea guest would take. Directions and opening hours are on the Aizanso page.