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is one type of Japanese residential architectural style. ''Suki'' means refined, well cultivated taste and delight in elegant pursuits and refers to enjoyment of the exquisitely performed tea ceremony. The word originally denoted a building in which tea ceremony was done (known as a ''
chashitsu ''Chashitsu'' (, "tea room") in Japanese tradition is an architectural space designed to be used for tea ceremony (''chanoyu'') gatherings. The architectural style that developed for ''chashitsu'' is referred to as the ''sukiya'' style (''suki ...
'') and was associated with '' ikebana'' flower arranging, and other Japanese traditional arts. It has come to indicate a style of designing public facilities and private homes based on tea house aesthetics. Historically and by tradition, ''sukiya-zukuri'' is characterised by a use of natural materials, especially wood. In contemporary architecture, its formal and spatial concepts are kept alive in modern materials such as steel, glass and concrete.


Origins

In 1587,
Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...
(1536–98) employed the tea master Sen no Rikyū as his advisor on aesthetic matters. In the compound of Hideyoshi's imposing
Jurakudai The Jurakudai or Jurakutei () was a palace constructed at the order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi in Kyoto, Japan. Construction began in 1586, when Hideyoshi had taken the post of , and required nineteen months to complete. Its total area was almost eq ...
castle in
Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...
Rikyū designed an eighteen mat building known as the ''Coloured Shoin'' which was thought to be the first example of ''sukiya-zukuri'' architecture. The style developed during the rest of the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568–1600) and was characterised by small rooms of usually four and a half tatami, or even less, that had a '' tokonoma'' and shelves. These buildings were normally entered through a garden often by means of an indirect curved or diagonal path that would not allow an instant view of the teahouse. ''Sukiya-zukuri'' architecture incorporates tea house aesthetics and encompasses all sorts of building types including private dwellings, villas, restaurants and inns. One of the best known examples is the
Katsura Detached Palace The , or Katsura Detached Palace, is an Imperial residence with associated gardens and outbuildings in the western suburbs of Kyoto, Japan. Located on the western bank of the Katsura River in Katsura, Nishikyō-ku, the Villa is 8km distant ...
in Kyoto. In the Edo period (1600–1868) ''sukiya-zukuri'' became popular among townspeople, and the majority of houses came to be built in this style.


Comparison with similar styles

In the Azuchi-Momoyama period not only sukiya style but the contrasting '' shoin-zukuri'' of residences of the warrior class developed. While ''sukiya'' was a small space, simple and austere, ''shoin-zukuri'' style was that of large, magnificent reception areas, the setting for the pomp and ceremony of the feudal lords. As an example, in a ''
shoin is a type of audience hall in Japanese architecture that was developed during the Muromachi period. The term originally meant a study and a place for lectures on the sūtra within a temple, but later it came to mean just a drawing room or s ...
'', the flower arrangement in the ''tokonoma'' is indicative of the relative wealth of the host, the guest however sits with their back to it as it is not meant for their enjoyment. Whereas, in a tearoom, the guest sits facing the ''tokonoma'' and enjoys its beauty. A comparison with '' shoin-zukuri'' makes clear the defining stylistic features of ''sukiya-zukuri''. The "frieze rails" called ''nageshi'' connect grooved, square columns in ''shoin-zukuri'', the transom is often elaborately carved, the ceiling is coffered or railed with a hexagonal rail and the wall surfaces are finished and often decorated with
mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spanis ...
s. The ''toko'' alcove, ''tana'' shelves and ''shoin'' built-in desk are arranged according to a fixed formula. In contrast, ''sukiya-zukuri'' often uses unsquared columns, even simple polished tree trunks, or wood with the bark in place for the ''nakabashira'' central column. The walls are simply finished with a natural earthen plaster, and any carving in the ''ranma'' transom is kept simple. The ceiling of boards is railed with flat, rectangular boards. Although there is a ''tokonoma'' alcove and ''tana'' shelves and maybe also ''shoin'' in the main room, their arrangement and treatment are free. The beauty of ''sukiya-zukuri'' comes from the delicate sensibility of the slender wood elements and other natural materials used, and the simplicity of ornamentation, if any.


Development

In the Coloured Shoin teahouse Sen no Rikyū stained the timbers with a mixture of Bengal red dye and black dye to make them look sooty and old. In contrast, his student's Oribe and Enshu preferred brighter colours and natural finishes. It is thought that this change coincided with the development of the regular wood plane that allowed a more consistent finish to wood and a better appreciation of the natural qualities of unfinished wood. It is a trait that has characterised the sukiya style since. After the
Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...
in 1867 the samurai class and thus the shoin-style lost its reason for being whereas the sukiya style continued to develop and was reassessed for modernist architecture. The sukiya style requires a subtle harmony between the principles required in its construction, these include the relationship between the client, the architect and the carpenter. Both the architect and the carpenter should have a profound understanding of the materials employed. There is an example of a carpenter asked to build a sukiya style house declining because he lost his tools in World War Two and he felt that he would not be in a position to work satisfactorily. Writing in 1934 the architect Isoya Yoshida encouraged architects to design in the sukiya-style using modern materials. He said that it was important to display the natural characteristics of the wood although it would be a mistake to use anything that might catch the eye as this was not in the spirit of the style. Though originally conceived in natural materials, primarily wood, sukiya style adapted itself to modern materials, namely concrete and steel, as builders and architects seek to incorporate sukiya interior design elements into modern buildings in an urban environment. This is not seen as a dilution of the design idiom -- as architectural historian Teiji Itoh points out, "in its formative years, the sukiya tradition was concerned primarily with interior design. ... Sukiya style is well suited to odern buildingsbecause it is concerned primarily with conforming a certain decor to an already established spatial entity." That said, in most cases, sukiya design in an urban setting is far from the original spirit of a "mountain retreat in the city" as it was conceived in the 16th century Japan of Sen no Rikyū.


Shutter systems

The transition between the Shoin and Sukiya styles occurred during the early 1600s, as a new structure for storm shutters was devised. By stacking the opaque wooden sliding doors in a box called a to-bukuro, instead of simply overlapping them, the amount of light in the interior doubled, and unbroken views of the garden could be obtained. The lede picture of the transitional
Katsura Imperial Villa The , or Katsura Detached Palace, is an Imperial residence with associated gardens and outbuildings in the western suburbs of Kyoto, Japan. Located on the western bank of the Katsura River in Katsura, Nishikyō-ku, the Villa is 8km distant fro ...
shows both systems. File:Nijo Castle J09 40-focused-right (cropped to retainer's hall).jpg, On the right, three grooves, three panels. The
maira-do Traditional Japanese architecture uses post-and-lintel structures – vertical posts, connected by horizontal beams. Rafters are traditionally the only structural member used in Japanese timber framing that is neither horizontal nor vertical. The ...
are open, and the single shōji panel closed; half of the area is still filled with the maira-do. The building to the left is newer; its outer groove runs outside the pillars. The shutters are packed away in the to-bukuro in the corner, and the shōji in the inner two grooves run uninterrupted. File:Castello nijo 03 ohiroma ichi-no-ma.JPG, From the inside, light levels are lower. The reflective gold paint used extensively in
Shoin style is a style of Japanese residential architecture used in the mansions of the military, temple guest halls, and Zen abbot's quarters of the Muromachi (1336-1573), Azuchi–Momoyama (1568–1600) and Edo periods (1600–1868). It forms the basi ...
buildings helps compensate. File:PocketDoorM0575.jpg, The corner of this temple has two to-bukuro cupboards, which the doors can slide into without having to be lifted and carried away. File:Storm-door,amado,narita-city,japan.JPG, Ama-do rotator; outer ama-do groove cut away for half an ama-do width on each side. Glass doors and shōji get two grooves each. File:Mairado-to-amado, shoin-to-sukiya-style.svg, Plan view of the mairado and amado shutter systems, showing rotator and to-bukuro. The black squares are pillars; shōji in white, rain shutters in black, grooves in grey. File:JapanHomes103 SECTION THROUGH VERANDAH AND GUEST-ROOM (SVG).svg, Section through a Sukiya-style middle-class home
In the first half of the 1600s, at the beginning of the Edo period, the outermost groove was moved outside the line of pillars. The wooden shutters placed in this groove interlocked edge-to-edge, and were called ''ama-do'' (雨戸, "rain-door"): they were storm shutters, used only at night and in poor weather. To open the building in the morning, each ama-do would be slid along to the end of groove, where they were stacked in a box called a to-bukuro (戸袋, とぶくろ: literally, "door-container"). The to-bukuro might be designed to swing out of the way. The inner two grooves remained as they were, but both could now be filled with shōji, doubling the number of shōji in a building. Lightweight shōji could be lifted out and carried away easily. This new structure allowed the entire side of the building to be opened, giving either twice as much light, from an uninterrupted wall of shoji, or an unobstructed view of the garden; gardens changed accordingly. Run-around
engawa An or is an edging strip of non-tatami-matted flooring in Japanese architecture, usually wood or bamboo. The may run around the rooms, on the outside of the building, in which case they resemble a porch or sunroom. Usually, the is outside t ...
porches meant that to-bukuro were initially located at the corners, but amado-rotator systems (amado-mawashi) were devised to eliminate this need (see images, an
external movie
. Amado were rotated at corners around a fixed vertical bar called a ''tomawashi-bou'' (later reduced to a pair of pegs by removing the middle section). By the mid-1600s, single-track ama-do had spread, and the ama-do might be placed on the outside of the engawa. Some further architectural changes were made under the influence of the change in shuttering. Shuttering was part of a combination of architectural changes marked the end of the shoin style, and the beginning of the sukiya style. Amado also served to secure buildings, and might have ''nejishimari'' (screw-in lock on the edges). They might also have ''musōmado'', vents which shuttered with sliding vertical slats, an allowed some light and air in when the shutters were closed. Later,''garasu-do'', glass sliding doors, were added between the ama-do and shoji.


Influence

During the
World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...
in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
in 1893, a small Nippon Tea House was built near the North pond that was designed in a loose version of the sukiya-style. Harper's Weekly, a national magazine, ran an article in March 1893 showing the construction of the Japanese contributions to the exhibition. The Chicago-based magazine ''Inland Architect'' also devoted two articles to it in the winter of 1892/3 so it is likely that local architects were familiar with the work. The historian Dmitri Tselos first identified the Nippon Tea House as a possible influence on
Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
, suggesting that the low-pitched double roof forms of the
Prairie Houses Prairie School is a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped ...
as having similar forms as the teahouse roof. In 1934 in his Okada residence, the architect Sutemi Horiguchi blended elements of the sukiya-style (influenced from the Katsura Detached Palace) in the garden to help fuse western and oriental aspects of the plan.Stewart (2002), p129 In 1954 Walter Gropius, founder of the
Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...
visited Katsura Detached Palace and was so struck by it that in 1960 he co-authored ''Katsura: Tradition and Creation Japanese Architecture'' with Kenzo Tange.
Most characteristic of the spirit of the conception is the path to the entrance gate of the villa. It conforms to the favorite Zen approach, which is rarely direct, axial, and symmetrical. There is a decided distaste for the imposing straight avenue; instead, there is a preference for the intimate and casual but carefully planned approach which supplies surprises at every turn and leads up to the main objective in a human, natural, unimposing manner. — Gropius, W (1968) ''Apollo in Democracy – The Cultural Obligation of the Architect'', McGraw-Hill Book Company, p 126


Footnotes


References

* * * * * {{Authority control Japanese architectural styles