Following yesterday’s Charcoal House story, here’s another of Terunobu Fujimori’s projects photographed by Edmund Sumner: this time Takasugi-an, a tea house in Chino, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.
The tea house is built atop two chestnut trees, cut from a nearby mountain and transported to the site, and is accessible only by free-standing ladders propped against one of the trees.
Following the tradition of tea masters, who maintained total control over the construction of their tea houses, Fujimori designed and built the structure for his own use.
The interior is covered with plaster and bamboo mats.
The name Takasugi-an means, “a tea house [built] too high.”
See more Japanese architecture in our Top Ten Japanese Projects
Here is some text about the Tea House, written by Yuki Sumner:
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Takasugi-an
Chino City, Nagano Prefecture
Terunobu Fujimori, 2003-2004
The academician and architect, Terunobu Fujimori, has observed that a teahouse is “the ultimate personal architecture.” Its extreme compactness, which would at most accommodate four and a half tatami mats (2.7 square metres) or even just two tatami mats (1.8 square metres) of floor space, makes it feel as though it were an extension of one’s body, “like a piece of clothing.”
The tea masters traditionally maintained total control over the construction of these “enclosures,” whose simplicity was their main concern. They therefore preferred not to involve an architect or even a skilled carpenter – an act considered as being too ostentatious. Following this tradition, Fujimori decided to build a humble teahouse for himself and by himself over a patch of land that belonged to his family.
His interest as an architect, however, lay more in pushing the limit and constraints of a traditional teahouse rather than pursuing the art of tea making, and as a result, he has created a highly expressive piece of architecture.
Takasugi-an, which literally means, “a teahouse [built] too high,” is indeed more like a tree house than a teahouse. In order to reach the room, the guests must climb up the freestanding ladders propped up against one of the two chestnut trees supporting the whole structure. The trees were cut and brought in from the nearby mountain to the site.
Shoes are taken off at the midway point. Once inside the room, which is padded simply with plaster and bamboo mats, the architect’s adventurous spirit gives way to the serenity more suited to the purpose of making tea and calming one’s mind.
The room displays a large window that frames the perfect bird’s eyes’ view of the town where Fujimori grew up. It effectively replaces kakejiku (a picture scroll) that would indicate clues appropriate to the time of the year in traditional teahouses. This kakejiku not only displays the cyclical seasonal changes but also the profound irreversible changes taking place in provincial towns like Chino.
Also visible in the distance is Fujimori’s very first project, Jinchokan Moriya Historical Museum. The architect’s penchant for the personal, vernacular, and everyday is particularly evident here in this swaying teahouse.
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Posted by Megan Wilton
March 12th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
I do wish that nylon cord gets replaced. I would have also hoped for a traditional entrance as well. It feels like two trees have grown from underneath and pushed the teahouse upward. It’s a fantastic little piece.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
like birdcage….
March 12th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I like the tea house, the trees are small enough to make it look unstable and strange. very cool
March 12th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
one of the coolest projects on dezeen. beautiful
March 12th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Iv always wanted something like that at the bottom of my garden!
March 12th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Kinda spooky… Might come to life like something out of a Studio Ghibli movie!
March 12th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
are u related to Alberto Fujimori?
March 12th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Quick, take a picture now before it falls down the next time they even get a breeze…. but seriously though with all the earthquakes there I wouldn’t go up into this thing, just does’t look supported well LOL
March 12th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Baba Yaga!
March 12th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
That is unreal!
March 12th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
This project made me smile.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Reminds me a little of Marco Casagrande’s Land (e) Scape however much more peaceful.
http://landescape1999.blogspot.com/
http://slaughtercarnival.blogspot.com/
March 13th, 2009 at 6:20 am
great, the wolves wont bite the oldman’s ass in the midnight
March 13th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Oh, so beautiful and terrifying. I’d love to have tea there someday.
March 13th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Starling house
March 13th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
tradition hits back at modern. Have anybody got hurt!
March 13th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
i feel the same sensations that Hundertwasser give to me. it’sfantasy, is something different from architecture. anyway, i like it
March 13th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
How bloody wonderful is that! It’s like like something out of a fairytale or tim burton- esqe theatre set. I love the simplicity of the tea making up there. What a lovely thing to see as friday at work draws to an end…
March 13th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I hope he keeps a coil of rope in the teahouse — in case someone removes the ladder! =)
March 13th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
the opposite of boring real estate architecture…. i wanna see more of that! But it is more made for man feeling like birds maybee…
March 14th, 2009 at 4:27 am
wow, absolutely wonderful. I’ll take 3 for my backyard.
March 14th, 2009 at 5:16 am
It’s just a stupid stunt.
March 14th, 2009 at 9:02 am
…“This is Wonderland,..Terunobu Fujimori”… ^-✿
March 14th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Beeautiful.
March 15th, 2009 at 1:12 am
poetry lives =)
March 15th, 2009 at 1:16 am
i have to say also that this is very refreshing, to see poetry in architecture instead of the same boring stupid concept statements that only want to be noticed by its coolness or crazyness aspect! =D
March 15th, 2009 at 1:18 am
also, alvaro siza vieira is the best architect the world as right now!=D keep it honest folks
March 15th, 2009 at 1:20 am
ups “has” instead of as, sorry people, cheers!
March 15th, 2009 at 1:59 am
this is a perfect example of concept creating an effect. how about one with the house in the middle of a tree rather than on top!
brilliant work by Mr.Fujimori
March 15th, 2009 at 2:03 am
imagine if this was a design meditation centre!!!
March 15th, 2009 at 11:07 am
those trees should be dead….if not ..?
March 15th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
WOW!!!
I wish It was being sold in stores & I could buy one!!!
xoxo
March 15th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
For full-figured Americans, this would be a dangerous place to meditate .
March 16th, 2009 at 1:22 am
pure poetry ! I’d love to see some of them flying in my dreams..
March 16th, 2009 at 3:26 am
I think I’ll build one.
I’ve considered building a little place “to meditate”, but never thought of this before.
Give it a Splat!
March 16th, 2009 at 8:30 am
I guess you need to drink more tea when you are up there.
March 16th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
only,.. the way the man sit in the photo is absolutely NOT the way the tea masters will sit in a tea house… He looks like a lumberjack rather…
March 17th, 2009 at 4:09 am
All that for a cup of tea?
March 17th, 2009 at 6:50 am
surrreall!!
March 18th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Looks like house the swedish cartoon hero “Skalman” lives in.
March 19th, 2009 at 1:04 am
I’m questioning the structural intergrity of this.
March 19th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Wow… it seems someone actually built a Bartlett project.
Brilliantly eccentric.
March 20th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Has anyone seen a version of a scaled-down Chinese pavilion that they can share on this site?
March 31st, 2009 at 1:58 pm
It s wonderfull.and I’m questioning the structural intergrity of this
March 31st, 2009 at 2:29 pm
house sited badly..needs to be nestled in the woods rather then awkwardly standing in a clearing..love his ceramics and cooking area..a relief from all the accumulated cooking equip etc us westerners have..but he doesnt entertain obviously…
March 31st, 2009 at 3:06 pm
…a teahouse is “the ultimate personal architecture”. I’d like to agree only that I believe architecture can only ultimately be that which is personal. A structure designed for something otherwise really just steps away from what architecture is. Unlike this perfect teahouse.
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:28 pm
simply awesome.
If you like architecture like this then check out a book called ‘home work’.. inspiration!
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm
For anyone interested further – and this is a bald-faced plug – our book, which was kindly reviewed on Dezeen a while back, contains 35 examples of the modern Japanese tea-ceremony room. It’s called NewZen, the tea-ceremony room in modern Japanese architecture and it’s published by 8 Books (www.8books.co.uk).
April 5th, 2009 at 6:16 am
how to climb?
April 7th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
It seems the house of Baba-Yaga!
April 11th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
How inspiring! What a delight! Another example of following a creative idea regardless of how impossible it seems.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I find that many architects who design their own tree houses do it precisely to test the limits of what can be done. I saw one not far away that was built on stilts over 100 feet high, with one of the stilts starting not in the ground, but at the top of a young 50 foot tree. The whole thing was guyed back to several places with cables, otherwise it would not have been possible. So kudos to architects who inspire us all, even if we would never built something like that ourselves…
May 2nd, 2009 at 6:06 pm
very wabi-sabi.
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Do you mind if I use your bathroom?
You say you have an out house? Oh, and it’s on the next tree. How high is the outhouse?
July 7th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
This is a perfect house for BIG kids at heart…. COOL!!