houseskyoto and gardens of Photography by Akihiko Seki Text by Thomas Daniell Tuttle Publishing Tokyo • Rutland, Vermont • Singapore 2 houses and gardens of kyoto HGK_0Prelims_5.1z.indd 2-3 3/9/10 12:40:30 PM Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus AUTHOR’S NOTE Editions (HK) Ltd., with editorial offi ces at 364 Innovation All Japanese names are given in Drive, North Clarendon, Vermont 05759 USA and 61 Tai the traditional order, with the Seng Avenue, #02-12, Singapore 534167 family name fi rst. As is Text copyright © 2010 Th omas Daniell customary, famous cultural Photographs copyright © 2010 Akihiko Seki fi gures are referred to by their All photographs by Akihiko Seki except given name, not their family Page 55—photo from istockphoto name. Traditional Japanese Photo on page 10 by courtesy of Urasenke/Tanko-sha. architecture is subject to an ongoing process of addition and All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be alteration, and it is oft en reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, impossible to defi nitively state recording, or by any information storage and retrieval when a particular building was system, without prior written permission from the completed. Many dates (birth, publisher. deaths, constructions, ISBN: 978-4-8053-1091-5 demolitions, and so on) are still debated among historians. In Distributed by each case, I have taken the most North America, Latin America & Europe commonly accepted date, or Tuttle Publishing that provided by the institution 364 Innovation Drive North Clarendon, VT 05759-9436 U.S.A. or family in question. 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XXXXX XXXXXX 5 HGK_0Prelims_5.1z.indd 4-5 3/9/10 12:40:32 PM CONTENTS Introduction: Houses and Gardens of Kyoto 08 CHAPTER 4: Traditional Inns 128 Hiiragiya 130 CHAPTER 1: Aristocratic Villas 22 Gion Hatanaka 136 Katsura Imperial Villa 24 Rangetsu 140 Shugakuin Imperial Villa 30 Jijuden 144 Kyoto Imperial Palace 36 Momijiya 148 Daikaku-ji 42 Yoshida Sanso 152 Byodo-in 46 Miyamaso 156 Kinkaku-ji 50 Ginkaku-ji 54 CHAPTER 5: Private Retreats 160 Jakko-in 58 Shisendo 162 Okouchi Sanso 166 CHAPTER 2: Temple Residences 62 Hakusasonso 170 Ryogen-in 64 Kawai Kanjiro Memorial Hall 174 68 Shoren-in Shigemori Mirei Garden Museum 178 Tofuku-ji 72 Shunki-an 182 Ryogin-an 76 Suisen-an 186 Ninna-ji 78 Nanzen-ji 82 CHAPTER 6: Tea Houses 190 Kanchi-in 86 Kodai-ji 192 Jingo-ji 90 Toji-in 196 Koto-in 200 CHAPTER 3: Merchant Townhouses 94 Murin-an 206 Kinpyo 96 Shokado Garden Art Museum 210 Kinmata 102 Urasenke 214 Inakatei 106 Juko-in 218 Iori Minoya-cho 110 Iori Sujiya-cho 116 Bibliography 222 Iori Zaimoku-cho 120 List of Houses and Gardens 223 Iori Sanbo Nishinotoin-cho 124 Acknowledgments 224 HGK_0Prelims_5.1z.indd 6-7 3/9/10 12:40:37 PM Left The central gate along the main garden path in the Okouchi Sanso estate. Right The Kinkaku, or Golden Pavilion, is now part of Rokuon-ji temple, but was originally the Buddhist relic hall in the retirement villa of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. Kyoto (or Heian-kyo, as the city was named at its founding by open to the south—a secluded locale and climate judged to have Houses and Gardens of Kyoto Emperor Kammu in 794) has been the birthplace—the incubator ideal geomantic properties. Emperor Kammu paid token compensa- and crucible—of most what is now considered to be quintessential tion to the local farmers that he forced to relocate, and then had the Japanese culture. Affl icted by fi res, wars, typhoons, fl oods, and city laid out on a regular gridiron pattern comprising walled blocks earthquakes, Kyoto was razed and rebuilt more than once during its called cho, each a 120m by 120m square (40 jo by 40 jo in the thousand years as the capital of Japan, yet it has also witnessed traditional measurement system). Infl uenced by city planning extraordinary fl owerings of stylistic invention in literature and models from China, Kyoto was intended as an ideal city ex nihilo, a theater, ceramics and calligraphy, clothing and cuisine, and, not kind of urban mandala or matrix that placed the Emperor as an least, architecture and gardens. Much of this coalesced in the intermediary between the gods and the citizens. Inevitably, the fi ft eenth century as what is now collectively known as higashiyama purity of the original vision was compromised by topography and bunka (east mountain culture), during which the arts became distorted by demographics. Over the ensuing centuries, the city has suff used by the Zen-inspired aesthetic of wabi sabi (best translated ebbed and fl owed across the land, shift ing eastward and regenerat- as “impoverished beauty”): the chado tea ceremony, ikebana fl ower ing in the aft ermath of intermittent destruction. Th e present layout arrangement, sumi-e ink painting, no theater, and so on. “Flowering” of Kyoto largely dates from the late-sixteenth century, when the city is indeed the right word; the quintessential Kyoto aesthetic and was reconfi gured and rebuilt by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598), attitude is known as hannari, literally “to become a fl ower.” Th e an extraordinary fi gure who rose from peasant origins to become goal—for people as well as artifacts—is to be elegant yet understat- the unifi er and ruler of Japan aft er centuries of unrest and civil war. ed, vibrant yet delicate, and always exquisitely sensitive to the Kyoto’s residential architecture evolved gradually from the nuances of one’s surroundings. For all the damage that has occurred founding of the city onward, and has been retrospectively classifi ed over the centuries, for all the relentless modernization still taking into three main stylistic subdivisions: shinden zukuri (palace style), place today, Kyoto remains a rich, inexhaustible archive of Japanese shoin zukuri (study style), and sukiya zukuri (tea house style). Rather cultural history. than distinct historical stages, these form a continuous evolution of On the site of what was in prehistoric times an enormous lake, shared themes, following a general progression from a somewhat Kyoto occupies a fl at plain surrounded by a horseshoe of mountains rigid and monumental formality to a more emancipated and 8 houses and gardens of kyoto INTRODUCTION Houses and Gardens of Kyoto 9 HGK_0Prelims_5.1z.indd 8-9 3/9/10 12:40:38 PM Left Totsutotsusai, a sukiya-style eight-tatami chashitsu in the Konnichian estate of the Urasenke Tea School. Right An elevated walkway extending across the enclosed space of the Shihoshomen-no- niwa. (Garden with Four Frontages) in Kanchi-in temple. sophisticated eclecticism. Not quite styles in the strict art-historical eters were closed by means of shitomido (detachable wooden sense, they refl ect particular lifestyles and social stratifi cations. panels), making the interiors completely dark at night and complete- Th ough primarily intended for the nobility and aristocracy, these ly open to the environment during the day. Aside from a few three architectural types have also infl uenced the design of minka, movable tatami mats used for sleeping or sitting, the fl oors were the traditional vernacular houses of the general population. Th e wooden boards. No original shinden residences survive today, but minka may be broadly subdivided into urban dwellings (machiya their general characteristics are known from ancient picture scrolls townhouses, nagaya rowhouses, yashiki detached manors) and rural and archaeological excavations. Some structures within Kyoto’s dwellings (noka farmhouses, gyoka fi sherfolk dwellings, sanka Imperial Palace precinct (a reconstruction built in the nineteenth mountain huts), all of which comprise wooden post-and-beam century) give a good sense of the shinden style, as does the Heian structures surfaced with a variety of natural materials. Jingu shrine (a partial, reduced-scale replica of the original Heian- During the early Heian Period (794–1185), members of the kyo Imperial Palace). aristocracy moved from all across the country to the new capital, As eff ective political power shift ed from the Imperial family to where they built houses in the shinden style. Th ough commoners the samurai warriors during the Muromachi Period (1336–1573), inhabited small subdivisions of a city block, a shinden dwelling oft en samurai families adopted the courtly lifestyle manifested in the occupied an entire block, and in some cases two or even four blocks. shinden style while adapting the dwellings to suit their own needs. Within perimeter fences made of tamped earth and capped with As the samurai were expected to become monks upon their tiles, the north half of the site would contain a roughly symmetrical retirement, a number of distinctive elements intended to facilitate a array of pavilions linked by large sheltered corridors, arranged to life of scholarship appeared, such as the tokonoma (decorative contain a central courtyard that faced onto a garden and pond alcove), chigaidana (staggered shelves), and tsukeshoin (built-in located to the south. Th e main building was the shinden itself, used writing desk).