Northern Culture Museum Sekisuian and Zekuken

Thatch and Tile in an L

The Northern Culture Museum Sekisuian and Zekuken (北方文化博物館積翠庵・是空軒, Sekisuian and Zekūken) in Somi, Konan Ward, Niigata City, is a single-storey timber Chashitsu of 1950, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 28 April 2000.

The Northern Culture Museum Sekisuian and Zekuken stands southeast of the great hall, looking north over the pond garden. Its plan is L-shaped: the thatched part on the garden side is the Sekisuian, and the pantile-roofed (Sangawara-buki) wing running east is the Zekuken. It covers 41 square metres.

It was designed by Tanaka Taiami, who made the garden and also designed the Sadokantei.

Rustic Hut and Formal Study Combined

The Northern Culture Museum Sekisuian and Zekuken was registered as a model of good design. The Agency for Cultural Affairs praises how skilfully it combines two contrasting modes: the rustic grass-hut style of the Sekisuian and the formal shoin style of the Zekuken.

The museum relates that the Sekisuian was built by the Kashiwazaki-born tea master Matsumura Soetsu, who was permitted to model it on Fushin-an, the tea room of the Omotesenke school. The museum writes the name with a variant character, 積翠菴.

According to the museum, the tea houses were placed in the garden under Taiami's direction as part of the seventh head's plan for a garden that could receive a thousand tea practitioners.

Seen from the Great Hall

The Northern Culture Museum Sekisuian and Zekuken is placed to be seen across the garden from the rooms of the great hall; the museum captions its photograph of the Sekisuian as the view from there.

Where thatch and tile meet at the corner of the L, the two moods can be read even from a distance. In autumn you see it through the maples of the main garden.

Visiting the Sekisuian and Zekuken

The museum states that the tea houses in the garden are not open to the public. The Northern Culture Museum Sekisuian and Zekuken cannot be entered and is best seen from outside, from the great hall.

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