Light has always been a major factor in Japanese architecture. Some would go so far as to say that “the beauty of a Japanese space is based purely on the gradation of shadows” (Juni’ichiro Tanizaki, Lob des Schattens – Entwurf einer japanischen Ästhetik). Indeed, added to the Taoist nothing and the Buddhist transience, the Shinto perception of darkness is one of a world that is populated by deities and spirits of the ancestors, called kami.
This resulted in a real sensibility for light and shadows, so much so that a Japanese room is almost defined as a number of gradations of shadow intensities, resembling in nothing to the Western perception of a room, which would be a light, open space. The sliding paper doors and walls, called shoji when translucent, add to this culture of the shadow. Indeed, they seem to shine by their own power, an aspect called Ryôsuke Ôhashi, or “Light without a source of Light”. Even at night, shoji retain their luminary power. The fine wooden frames reinforce that effect by their lightness, appearing as shadows themselves.
In our ROOM, we let nature intervene once more. Indeed, instead of adding shoji and influence the site artificially, we surrendered the play of light completely to the leaves of the canopy. How could the notion of a ROOM as a variety of shadow intensities be stronger than in the case of a roof which had that same use? There was nothing to change, the shoji are the leaves, together forming the entity of a roof, the structural counterpart to the creation of shadows, and thus the ROOM.
Furthermore, the natural knot where we anchored our structure is the only element where we created artificial shadow. The shadows created thus emphasize the oku gradient of our ROOM, and the natural knot as the centre of our structure in relation to ma.
This sensibility for shadows has even been a factor in the makeup geisha wear. Indeed, if they wear a white foundation, it is because they strived to catch the light even in the dim-lit ochaya of the glorious Edo Period. Ohaguro, the practice of blackening one’s teeth, once practiced by every mature woman, is also rumoured to be related to this.
“Light, natural or manufactured, floods to every corner of an architectonic form. Darkness, which is preserved, is what makes depth be seen. If light be called the life-blood of an architectonic form, darkness could rightly be called its soul.” Amos Ich Tiao Chang, The Tao of Architecture
This sensibility for shadows is even more important in relation to the different oku layers of the teahouse. The tokonoma as the spiritual centre had to be perfectly staged in order to suggest the Shinto connotations of its nature.
“If the shadows crouching at every angle were to be chased away, the wall niche would immediately be nothing more than an empty room.” (Jun’ichiro Tanizaki)
The same goes for the tea garden of course. Indeed, the further one ventures into it, the more one will be surrounded by trees and leaves, creating an inimitable environment of shadows, more complex than one could created with constructive elements. This journey to the dark, the sacred centre is once again in connotation with the physical and psychological religious journey we already elaborated. As always in Teaism, the different religions come together in order to create the distinctively Japanese experience.
Here once again, by using the garden as a fundamental element in the creation of our ROOM, the boundaries are blurred, and an approach to the ROOM is intertwined with the oku gradient through the ROOM itself, instead of having to create the effect.