Kitamura Museum of Art Shikunshien Detached Tea Room

A Tea House at the Far End of the Garden

Kitamura Museum of Art Shikunshien Detached Tea Room (北村美術館四君子苑離れ茶席, Shikunshi-en Hanare Chaseki) is the free-standing tea house at the innermost point of Shikunshien in Kajii-cho, Kamigyo Ward, Kyoto City; it was completed in 1944 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2001.

It is a single-storey timber building with a tiled roof partly finished in cypress bark, and at 109 square metres it is the largest registered building at Shikunshien after the main house.

Inside are two very different places for tea. One is a small room of 2 mats plus a daime mat, with a board called a nakaita inserted between host and guests; it is named Chinsanren. The other is a Zashiki suite of a large room and an adjoining room. A Mizuya preparation room sits between them and serves both. Kitamura Museum of Art Shikunshien Detached Tea Room can host an intimate wabi gathering or a larger formal one under a single roof.

Why It Was Registered

Kitamura Museum of Art Shikunshien Detached Tea Room was registered as number 26-0094 under the criterion for buildings that serve as a model of design. The Agency for Cultural Affairs praises the small room first: its companion seat and noble's entrance make for an intricate arrangement, handled with inventive skill.

The large room, by contrast, is described as plain yet gentle and refined. Craft is spent on the small room and held back in the large one. That judgement about where to show off and where to be quiet is what marks this as the work of the master carpenter Kitamura Sutejiro.

What to Look For: Chinsanren

Chinsanren is laid out as 2 mats plus a daime mat, a host's mat shorter than standard, with the nakaita board set between host and guests. A single strip of wood opens up a little distance in a very small room.

A shobanseki, or companion seat, is built into the room for the guests who accompany the principal guest, so the seating can be adjusted to the size of the party. The Kyoto Tobunkai says the design follows En'an, the tea room that preserves the taste of the tea master Furuta Oribe, in making the seating expandable. A kinin-guchi, a paper-screened doorway through which a high-ranking guest could enter upright, is provided alongside the usual crawl-through door.

The same source notes that, apart from the door pulls on the sliding panels, the interior is finished plainly, and reads this as a restrained taste that lets the materials speak. Complex planning with simple surfaces: that pairing defines the room.

Visiting

Kitamura Museum of Art Shikunshien Detached Tea Room can be seen during the spring and autumn special openings of Shikunshien. Photography is not allowed in the garden. Because it stands at the far end of the corridor that runs from the yoritsuki, it is the last building you reach. Approach it past its outer waiting bench and you meet it in the same order a tea guest would.