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Chashitsu (茶室, 'tea room') in Japanese tradition is an architectural space designed to be used for tea ceremony (chanoyu) gatherings.[1]
The architectural style that developed for chashitsu is referred to as the sukiya style (sukiya-zukuri), and the term sukiya (数奇屋) may be used as a synonym for chashitsu.[2] Related Japanese terms are chaseki (茶席), broadly meaning "place for tea", and implying any sort of space where people are seated to participate in tea ceremony,[3] and chabana, "tea flowers", the style of flower arrangement associated with the tea ceremony.
Typical features of chashitsu are shōji windows and sliding doors made of wooden lattice covered in a translucent Japanese paper; tatami mat floors; a tokonoma alcove; and simple, subdued colours and style. The most typical floor size of a chashitsu is 4.5 tatami mats (7.4 m2; 80 sq ft).[4]
In Japanese, free-standing structures specifically designed for exclusive tea ceremony use, as well as individual rooms intended for tea ceremony, are both referred to as chashitsu. The term may be used to indicate the tea room itself where the guests are received, or that room and its attached facilities, even extending to the roji garden path leading to it.[5] In English, a distinction is often made between free-standing structures for tea, referred to as tea houses, and rooms used for tea ceremony incorporated within other structures.
Tea houses are usually small, simple wooden buildings. They are located in the gardens or grounds of private homes. Other common sites are the grounds of temples, museums, and parks. The smallest tea house will have two rooms: the main room where the host and guests gather and tea is served, and a mizuya, where the host prepares the sweets and equipment. The entire structure may have a total floor area of only three tatami mats.
Very large tea houses may have several tea rooms of different sizes; a large, well-equipped mizuya resembling a modern kitchen; a large waiting room for guests; a welcoming area where guests are greeted and can remove and store their shoes; separate toilets for men and women; a changing room; a storage room; and possibly several anterooms as well as a garden with a roji path, an outdoor waiting area for guests and one or more privies.
Tea rooms are purpose-built spaces for holding tea gatherings. They may be located within larger tea houses, or within private homes or other structures not intended for tea ceremony. A tea room may have a floor area as small as 1.75 tatami mats (one full tatami mat for the guests plus a tatami mat called a daime (台目), about 3/4 the length of a full tatami mat, for the portable brazier (furo) or sunken hearth (ro) to be situated and the host to sit and prepare the tea); or as large as 10 tatami mats or more; 4.5 mats is generally considered the ideal in modern tea rooms. A tea room will usually contain a tokonoma and a sunken hearth for preparing tea in the winter.
The term chashitsu came into use after the start of the Edo period (c. 1600). In earlier times, various terms were used for spaces used for tea ceremony, such as chanoyu zashiki (茶湯座敷, "sitting room for chanoyu"), sukiya (place for poetically inclined aesthetic pursuits [fūryū, 風流]) such as chanoyu), and kakoi (囲, "partitioned-off space").[4] An account stated that it was the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa who built the first chashitsu at his Higashiyama villa in Kyoto.[6] It was described as a small room of four-and-a-half tatami and was separated from the main residence.[6]
According to Japanese historian Moriya Takeshi in his article "The Mountain Dwelling Within the City", the ideal of wabi-style tea ceremony (wabi-cha) had its roots in the urban society of the Muromachi period (1336 to 1573), and took form in the tea houses that townspeople built at their residences and which affected the appearance of thatched huts in mountain villages.[7] Before this, tea ceremony was generally enjoyed in rooms built in the shoin-zukuri architectural style, a style still frequently employed today.[8]
Tea houses first appeared in the Sengoku period (mid-15th century to early 17th century), a time in which the central government had almost no practical power, the country was in chaos, and wars and uprisings were commonplace. Seeking to reclaim Japan, samurai were busy acquiring and defending territories, promoting trade and overseeing the output of farms, mills and mines as de facto rulers, and many of the poor were eager to seek the salvation of the afterlife as taught by Buddhism. Tea houses were built mostly by Zen monks or by daimyōs, samurai, and merchants who practiced tea ceremony. They sought simplicity and tranquility – central tenets of Zen philosophy. The acknowledgment of simplicity and plainness, which is a central motivation of the tea house, continued to remain as a distinct Japanese tradition in the later periods.
The Golden Tea Room (黄金の茶室, Ōgon no chashitsu) was a portable gilded chashitsu constructed during the 16th century Azuchi–Momoyama period for the Japanese regent Lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi's tea ceremonies. The original room is lost, but a number of reconstructions have been made. The Golden Tea Room was constructed to impress guests with the might and power of the regent. This was in contrast to the rustic aesthetics codified under his tea master Sen no Rikyū, although it is speculated that Rikyū might have helped in the design.[9][10] The room's opulence was highly unusual and may have also been against wabi-sabi norms.[11] At the same time, the simplicity of the overall design with its clean lines could be seen as within the canon. The extent of teamaster Rikyū's involvement in the design of the room is not known, however he was in attendance on a number of occasions when tea was being served to guests in the room.[11]
The ideal free-standing tea house is surrounded by a small garden having a path leading to the tea room. This garden is called roji (露地, "dewy ground") and is divided into two parts by a gate called chumon.[6] Along the path is a waiting bench for guests and a privy. Aside from its own garden, the chashitsu is arranged – along with other pavilions such as the zashiki, oku no zashiki, and hanare zashiki – around a larger primary garden.[12]
There is a stone water-basin near the tea house, where the guests rinse their hands and mouths before entering the tea room through a low, square door called nijiriguchi,[6] or "crawling-in entrance", which requires bending low to pass through and symbolically separates the small, simple, quiet inside from the crowded, overwhelming outside world. The nijiriguchi leads directly into the tea room.
The tea room has a low ceiling and no furniture: the guests and host sit seiza-style on the floor. All materials used are intentionally simple and rustic. Besides the guests' entrance, there may be several more entrances; at minimum there is an entrance for the host known as the sadōguchi, which allows access to the mizuya. Windows are generally small and covered with shōji, which allows natural light to filter in. The windows are not intended to provide a view to the outside, which would detract from the participants' concentration. There is a sunken hearth (炉 ro) located in the tatami adjacent to the host's tatami, for use in the cold months; this hearth is covered with a plain tatami and is not visible in the warm months, when a portable brazier (風炉 furo) is used instead.
There will be a tokonoma (scroll alcove) holding a scroll of calligraphy or brush painting, and perhaps a small, simple, flower arrangement called a chabana (茶花), but no other decoration.
Chashitsu are broadly classified according to whether they have a floor area larger or smaller than 4.5 tatami, a differentiation which affects the style of ceremony that can be conducted, the specific type of equipment and decoration that can be used, the placement of various architectural features and the hearth, and the number of guests that can be accommodated. Chashitsu which are larger than 4.5 mats are called hiroma ("big room"), while those that are smaller are called koma ("small room"). Hiroma often are shoin style rooms, and for the most part are not limited to use for chanoyu.
Other factors that affect the tea room are architectural constraints such as the location of windows, entrances, the sunken hearth and the tokonoma, particularly when the tea room is not located within a purpose-built structure. The other factors that influence the construction of the chashitsu as a space in the iemoto are the iconography of the past and the memory of particular individuals.[13]
Not all tea rooms can be made to conform to the ideal seen in the image.
It is usual for chashitsu to be given a name after their owners or benefactors. Names usually include the character for "hut" (庵, an), "hall" (堂, dō), or "arbour"/"pavilion" (亭, tei), and reflect the spirit of rustic simplicity of the tea ceremony and the teachings of Zen Buddhism. Characteristic names include:
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Chashitsu (茶室, '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 (sukiya-zukuri), and the term sukiya (数奇屋) may be used as a synonym for chashitsu. Related Japanese terms are chaseki (茶席), broadly meaning "place for tea", and implying any sort of space where people are seated to participate in tea ceremony, and chabana, "tea flowers", the style of flower arrangement associated with the tea ceremony. Typical features of chashitsu are shōji windows and sliding doors made of wooden lattice covered in a translucent Japanese paper; tatami mat floors; a tokonoma alcove; and simple, subdued colours and style. The most typical floor size of a chashitsu is 4.5 tatami mats (7.4 m2; 80 sq ft).
The Japanese tea ceremony is a cultural activity known as sadō/chadō (茶道, 'the way of tea') or chanoyu (茶の湯, 'hot water for tea'). The ceremony focuses on the presentation and serving of matcha (抹茶), powdered green tea; this procedure is called temae (点前). Much less commonly, Japanese tea practice uses leaf tea, primarily sencha. This practice is known as senchadō (煎茶道, 'the way of sencha'). In Japanese, there is a term, Sadō or Chadō, which means "tea way" and emphasizes the Tao (道). The English term Teaism was coined by Okakura Kakuzō to describe the unique worldview associated with the Japanese way of tea, rather than focusing solely on its presentation, which was initially perceived by some Western observers as ceremonial. In the 1500s, Sen no Rikyū revolutionized Japanese tea culture. He played a key role in developing what is now known as the Japanese tea ceremony and elevated it to the status of an art form. He redefined the rules of the tea house, tea garden, utensils, and procedures of the tea ceremony with his own interpretation. He also introduced a much smaller chashitsu (tea house) and rustic, distorted ceramic tea bowls specifically for the tea ceremony, and emphasized the tea ceremony based on the aesthetic of wabi. Sen no Rikyū's great-grandchildren founded the Omotesenke, Urasenke, and Mushakōjisenke schools of tea ceremony. As a result, the tea ceremony spread not only to daimyo (feudal lords) and the samurai class but also to the general public, which led to the establishment of various tea ceremony schools that continue to this day. Zen Buddhism and Shinto has greatly influenced the culture of Japanese tea. For example, the practice of purifying one's hands and mouth before practicing the tea ceremony is influenced by the Shinto purification ritual of misogi. The architectural style of the chashitsu and the gate that serves as the boundary between the tea garden and the secular world has been influenced by Shinto shrine architecture and the torii (shrine gate). Buddhists used tea to prevent drowsiness during long meditations. Tea gatherings are classified as either an informal tea gathering, chakai (茶会, 'tea gathering'), or a formal tea gathering, chaji (茶事, 'tea event'). A chakai is a relatively simple course of hospitality that includes wagashi (confections), thin tea, and perhaps a light meal. A chaji is a much more formal gathering, usually including a full-course kaiseki meal followed by confections, thick tea, and thin tea. A chaji may last up to four hours.
Japanese architecture (日本建築, Nihon kenchiku) has been typified by wooden structures, elevated slightly off the ground, with tiled or thatched roofs. Sliding doors (fusuma) and other traditional partitions were used in place of walls, allowing the internal configuration of a space to be customized for different occasions. People usually sat on cushions or otherwise on the floor, traditionally; chairs and high tables were not widely used until the 20th century. Since the 19th century, however, Japan has incorporated much of Western, modern, and post-modern architecture into construction and design, and is today a leader in cutting-edge architectural design and technology. The earliest Japanese architecture was seen in prehistoric times in simple pit-houses and stores adapted to the needs of a hunter-gatherer population. Influence from Han dynasty China via Korea saw the introduction of more complex grain stores and ceremonial burial chambers. The introduction of Buddhism in Japan during the sixth century was a catalyst for large-scale temple building using complicated techniques in wood. Influence from the Chinese Sui and Tang dynasties led to the foundation of the first permanent capital in Nara. Its checkerboard street layout used the Chinese capital of Chang'an as a template for its design. In 894 during the Heian period (794–1185), Japan abolished kentōshi (Japanese missions to Tang China) and began to distance itself from Chinese culture, and a culture called Kokufu bunka (lit., Japanese culture) which was suited to the Japanese climate and aesthetic sense flourished. The shinden-zukuri style, which was the architectural style of the residences of nobles in this period, showed the distinct uniqueness of Japanese architecture and permanently determined the characteristics of later Japanese architecture. Its features are an open structure with few walls that can be opened and closed with doors, shitomi and sudare, a structure in which shoes are taken off to enter the house on stilts, and sitting or sleeping directly on tatami mats without using chairs and beds. As the samurai class gained power in the Kamakura period (1185–1333), the shinden-zukuri style changed, and in the Muromachi period (1333–1573), the shoin-zukuri style appeared. This style had a lasting influence on later Japanese architectural styles and became the basis of modern Japanese houses. Its characteristics were that sliding doors called fusuma and paper windows called shōji were fully adopted, and tatami mats were laid all over the room. The introduction of the tea ceremony emphasised simplicity and modest design as a counterpoint to the excesses of the aristocracy. In the Azuchi–Momoyama period (1568–1600), sukiya-zukuri style villas appeared under the influence of a tea house called chashitsu. At first it was an architectural style for the villas of daimyo (Japanese feudal lords) and court nobles, but in the Edo period (1683–1807) it was applied to ryōtei (Japanese-style restaurants) and chashitsu, and later it was also applied to residences. During the Meiji Restoration of 1869 the history of Japanese architecture was radically changed by two important events. The first was the Kami and Buddhas Separation Act of 1868, which formally separated Buddhism from Shinto and Buddhist temples from Shinto shrines, breaking an association between the two which had lasted well over a thousand years. Secondly, it was then that Japan underwent a period of intense Westernization in order to compete with other developed countries. Initially, architects and styles from abroad were imported to Japan, but gradually the country taught its own architects and began to express its own style. Architects returning from study with Western architects introduced the International Style of modernism into Japan. However, it was not until after the Second World War that Japanese architects made an impression on the international scene, firstly with the work of architects like Kenzo Tange and then with theoretical movements, like Metabolism.
Mizuya (水屋; "water room") is the term for the preparation area in a Japanese tea house (chashitsu) or attached to any venue used for the Japanese tea ceremony. For instance, the area used for preparation during outdoor tea ceremonies is also called the mizuya. The term mizuya can also refer to purificatory fonts at shrines and temples, as well as to storage cupboards for use in kitchens. This article, however, focuses on the tea ceremony mizuya.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
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