Izumi City Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art Teahouse Soan

A copy of the smallest room in Omotesenke

The Izumi City Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art Teahouse Soan (惣庵, Sōan) is a small 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.

Soan is a copy of Fushin-an, the intimate tea room at the centre of the Omotesenke school in Kyoto. It stands on the north side of Chosentei, the larger reception room, and the two share a Mizuya, the preparation room where utensils are washed and laid out. Chosentei copies the room where guests are received; Soan copies the room where the tea itself is served in the pared-down wabi manner. Built as a pair, they reproduce the core of the Omotesenke tea house.

The structure measures 2 by 3 ken, a single-storey timber building with a gabled roof of pantiles and a copper-sheet canopy. Its building area is 20 square metres.

Why it was registered

Like its neighbour, the Izumi City Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art Teahouse Soan was registered as a structure that would not be easy to reproduce. What it reproduces is the arrangement of Fushin-an in a room of three and three-quarter mats.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the layout: a low crawl-in entrance (nijiriguchi) on the east side, with the alcove and a small service door directly opposite, and the host's entrance behind the host's mat. The exposed rafter ceiling (Keshō-yaneura) and the skylight propped open from below (Tsukiage-mado) also follow Fushin-an. Osaka Bunkazai Navi calls it a faithful copy, with one difference: the central post is thinner than the original's and has a curve.

What to look for

The room consists of three full mats and a shorter daime mat, about three-quarters the usual length, where the host sits to make tea. The naka-bashira, the free-standing post at the corner of the host's mat, sets the character of the whole room. Here it is slimmer and more crooked than at Fushin-an, a choice of timber rather than a mistake.

A guest crawling in through the nijiriguchi sees the alcove first, exactly as at Fushin-an. The exposed roof underside and the skylight control how much light falls where the tea is made.

From outside the building is modest: a small gable, a copper canopy, set back at the end of the inner roji. The route to it passes through the Umemi Gate and past the Inner Waiting Arbor.

Visiting

The museum lists Soan as closed to the public. The Sunday tea room openings cover Chosentei next door, and Soan's interior cannot be entered.

How close visitors can get to the inner roji on an opening day depends on what is open that day. The museum notes that some areas are closed for conservation, so follow the staff's directions.