Kitamura Museum of Art Shikunshien Corridor and Outer Waiting Bench

The Path and the Pause Before Tea

Kitamura Museum of Art Shikunshien Corridor and Outer Waiting Bench (北村美術館四君子苑渡廊下・外腰掛, Shikunshi-en Watari-rōka Soto-koshikake) is the building at Shikunshien in Kajii-cho, Kamigyo Ward, Kyoto City that joins a covered corridor running east from the yoritsuki with the outer waiting bench of the detached tea room; it was completed in 1944 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2001.

It is a single-storey timber structure with a tiled roof and a building area of 25 square metres.

The corridor floor is laid in shihanjiki: square tiles turned 45 degrees so the joints run on the diagonal, which keeps a long walkway from looking flat. The outer waiting bench is a roofed seat where tea guests wait to be called in, the equivalent of the Koshikake-machiai in a tea garden.

Why It Was Registered

Kitamura Museum of Art Shikunshien Corridor and Outer Waiting Bench was registered as number 26-0097 under the criterion for buildings that serve as a model of design. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes a plain but carefully crafted arrangement brimming with the intentions of the master carpenter Kitamura Sutejiro. Of all the agency's descriptions of the Shikunshien buildings, this is the only one that names him.

There is a point in registering a corridor and a bench on their own. A tea gathering is designed to include the walk from the gate to the tea room. Kitamura Museum of Art Shikunshien Corridor and Outer Waiting Bench is that walk, and that wait, given a building.

What to Look For

The corridor does not run straight. It turns partway along, and in places the span between posts widens. As you walk, the view shifts and the width changes, and your pace changes with it, a gradual adjustment of mood on the way to tea.

The waiting bench is divided into a seat for a noble guest and a seat for the guests who accompany them. The etiquette of who sits where begins before anyone enters the tea room.

Overhead is a exposed ceiling framed with bamboo hip rafters and bamboo rafters. Sit on the bench and look up, and the thin lines of bamboo trace the shape of the roof above you. This is the kind of detail the agency means when it speaks of craft.

Visiting

Kitamura Museum of Art Shikunshien Corridor and Outer Waiting Bench can be seen during the spring and autumn special openings of Shikunshien. Photography is not allowed in the garden. Since the corridor links the yoritsuki with the detached tea room, you will walk it naturally on your way through. Pause at the waiting bench to look at the bamboo ceiling and compare the 2 seats.