Izumi City Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art Teahouse Chosentei

A reception room copied from Kyoto

The Izumi City Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art Teahouse Chosentei (聴泉亭, Chōsen-tei) is a large tea room built in 1937 in the garden of the Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art in Uchida-cho, Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2006.

Japanese tea rooms come in two broad kinds: the small, deliberately humble koma, and the hiroma, a larger room of ten mats or so where a host can seat more guests with some formality. Chosentei is a hiroma, and a very particular one. It copies Zangetsu-tei, the reception room of the Omotesenke school of tea in Kyoto, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that the copy follows the original down to its measurements and the timber chosen for individual posts.

The building is a single-storey timber structure of 3 by 7 ken under a gabled roof of pantiles, with a copper-sheet canopy on the east gable end. Its building area of 111 square metres makes it the largest of the ten registered structures in the compound. Soan, the small tea room, is joined to its north side through a shared preparation room.

Why it was registered

The registration criterion for Chosentei is that it would not be easy to reproduce. The point is less that it is old than that someone commissioned a measured copy of a celebrated room belonging to one of the main schools of tea, and had it built with care.

It is not a perfect replica, and that is part of the interest. Osaka Bunkazai Navi, the prefectural heritage guide, points out two departures: the orientation of the Taiko-bashira, the post at the corner of the raised alcove, and the way the alcove ceiling steps up and down. Those are the places where the client and his carpenters made their own calls.

What to look for

Inside, the ten-mat room has a two-mat raised platform that serves as the Tokonoma, with a built-in writing alcove (Tsukeshoin) beside it. Find the corner post of the raised platform and compare its setting with photographs of Zangetsu-tei; the difference is small but deliberate.

The transom above the sliding doors carries a dancing paulownia motif, and the short wall between the nine-mat room and the side corridor is finished with a bent log that still has its bark. Osaka Bunkazai Navi notes that both details match what is found at Omotesenke.

From outside, the copper canopy on the east gable is the landmark of the Izumi City Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art Teahouse Chosentei: a thin metal lip under the heavy tile roof, facing the garden path.

Visiting

This is the tea room the museum actually opens. Viewing is on Sundays only, and for fiscal 2026 two sessions are scheduled, 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Sessions are cancelled in rain and may change without notice.

Photography is allowed inside, but not with tripods or selfie sticks. Bare feet are not permitted, so bring socks. Visitors are asked not to touch walls, posts or paper screens, and some areas are closed for conservation. Soan, next door, is not open to the public.