Kuretake Bunko Tea House

About the Kuretake Bunko Tea House

The Kuretake Bunko Tea House (呉竹文庫茶室, Kuretake Bunko Chashitsu) is a single-storey timber Chashitsu built around 1943 at Kuretake Bunko in Minatomachi, Hakusan City, Ishikawa Prefecture, and it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on June 29, 2022. It has a tiled roof and a footprint of just 20 square meters, making it the newest and smallest of the four registered buildings at Kuretake Bunko.

The Kuretake Bunko Tea House stands on its own at the eastern edge of the grounds, apart from the museum buildings. The library calls it Kuretake-an and counts it among the sights of the garden. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a tea house built for the private library by a businessman. Kumada Gentarō, the founder, had died in 1935, so it went up after his death.

Why It Was Registered

The Kuretake Bunko Tea House was registered as a model of architectural form. The Agency singles out the treatment of the alcove as original.

For so small a building it combines two distinctive traits: an unusually open relationship with the outdoors and an alcove that ignores convention. That a library made room for tea at all says something about Kuretake Bunko, which was meant from the start as a gathering place for cultural life.

An Earthen Veranda and a Bamboo Alcove Post

The Kuretake Bunko Tea House has a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles. Hisashi eaves wrap around three sides, and beneath them runs a doen, an earth-floored veranda. Sliding shoji screens separate the veranda from the tea room; slide them back and the two become one space, an open arrangement for a building type that usually turns inward.

The tea room itself is three tatami mats. Beside the Tokonoma alcove is a tiny side room of about one mat, divided off by a horaguchi, an opening with a rounded top.

The feature to look for in the Kuretake Bunko Tea House is the alcove post (Tokobashira): a stem of kuretake bamboo set partly into the wall. Using slender bamboo for the post, and plastering it into the wall, is the heart of what the Agency calls an original alcove.

Visiting the Kuretake Bunko Tea House

The Kuretake Bunko Tea House stands in the garden, and its exterior can be seen once you have entered Kuretake Bunko. The library's floor plan does not mark it as closed, but its guide does not say if visitors may step inside. When the shoji facing the veranda are open, the three-mat room and its alcove can be glimpsed from outside.

Rooms at Kuretake Bunko can be hired for a fee, and anyone hoping to use the tea house for a gathering should apply at reception. Photography is not allowed inside the museum; the guide says nothing specific about the garden, so ask at reception. Opening hours and directions are on the Kuretake Bunko page.