Mushakoji Senke Tea Room Kodoan

The Large Practice Hall of Mushakoji Senke

The Mushakoji Senke Tea Room Kodoan (武者小路千家茶室弘道庵, Kōdōan) is a tea room built around a 15-mat hall, standing east of the main house in the Mushakoji Senke tea school's compound in Kamigyō Ward, Kyoto City; it was rebuilt by Yukōsai in 1940 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 8 November 2004.

It is a single-storey timber building covering 59 square metres, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as the practice hall. Where Kankyūan in the same compound seats a single guest, the Mushakoji Senke Tea Room Kodoan was built to hold many people at once.

How a Tea Room Grew to 15 Mats

The story of the Mushakoji Senke Tea Room Kodoan goes back to Jikisai in the mid-18th century. According to the school's tea-room pages, Jikisai founded a 12-mat room in 1774; it burned in the great fire of 1788, and when Ittotsusai rebuilt it the room became 15 mats. The school's history page, however, credits Jikisai himself with the 15-mat Kōdōan. The school's own texts disagree on when the room reached its present size.

Kōdōan burned again in 1854. The present building was put up by Yukōsai in 1940, the year of the 350th memorial of Sen no Rikyū's death. The school explains that he recreated Jikisai's great 15-mat hall on the east side of the garden so that large numbers of students could gather at once.

The school's history notes that tea rooms in Rikyū's line had until then run from four and a half mats to at most about eight, and calls the leap to 15 mats a turning point.

Why It Was Registered: A Sequence from Street to Hall

The Mushakoji Senke Tea Room Kodoan was registered as a building that has become a model of its type. Set back a little from the road to the south, it opens with an earth-floored Doma entrance, followed by a six-mat waiting room and a six-and-a-half-mat second room, with the 15-mat hall beyond. The school calls the six-and-a-half-mat room the Mizuya, or preparation room.

The hall has an alcove and a built-in writing desk, the Tsukeshoin, and is ringed by an earth-floored veranda. The school gives the alcove a width of one and a half ken and the desk one ken. Outside the entrance a carriage turn leads out to Mushakōji-dōri, so guests arriving by the main entrance step straight into Kōdōan's waiting room.

The roof is laid with Sangawara-buki pantiles and the eaves are sheathed in copper. Kankyūan, in the same compound, finishes its eaves in wooden Kokerabuki shingles instead.

What to Look For: The Kōdō Board by Konoe Fumimaro

Above the stepping stone at the entrance to the Mushakoji Senke Tea Room Kodoan hangs a board reading Kōdō, "spreading the Way." It was written by Konoe Fumimaro, the future prime minister, who studied tea directly under Yukōsai. The characters were lightly carved by his younger brother Mizuyagawa Tadamaro, also a direct pupil.

Around the outside of the hall runs a veranda floored with earth rather than boards. The Agency's notes place Kōdōan across the garden to the east of the main house.

Viewing the Mushakoji Senke Tea Room Kodoan

The Mushakoji Senke Tea Room Kodoan is not open to the public and cannot be visited. Its carriage turn faces Mushakōji-dōri, but the building itself is inside the gate; from the street you can see only the gate and the boundary wall.

Kōdōan is still used for the school's lessons and tea gatherings. Photographs of the hall appear on the tea-room pages of the school's official website.