The Tea-Tree House

Takasugi-an: A Tea-Tree House

Half tradition, and half innovation: this is Fujimori's Japanese tea house, built atop two relocated Chestnut trees, held aloft by a single trunk on one side and a split trunk on the other. The trees seem almost to have been selected for a look of imbalance, or fragility, alike to the style of an informal upright bonsai.

Takasugi-an translates roughly to mean "a tea house built too high" and the structure certainly wasn't built for the faint-hearted tea enthusiast. The building is only accessible via a freestanding ladder (conspicuously missing from most pictures of the tea house) up to the little wooden platform two-thirds of the way up the single trunk. Upon reaching the platform, visitors are expected to remove their shoes, then climb a second ladder the final third of the way up.

Fujimori built the tea house personally, for himself, following in the tradition of the tea master carefully conducting the building and design of his tea house. It was built on family land in Chino, Nagano Prefecture, with three windows looking out upon the city where the architect grew up.

Simplicity and purity are two of the integral themes to the design of a tea house, thus tea masters have not usually employed architects or artisans in building their tea houses. Fujimori uses constraints in an attempt to test the balance possible between architectural innovation and the traditional tea house. One of these constraints is size; Fujimori designed the tea house 

to be very small, just 29 sq ft. He also limits himself to the use of limited materials, such as the plaster and bamboo that

make up the interior composition. 

These factors are what ultimately lend the greatest sense of purity and beauty to the structure. Tradition is what allows Fujimori's innovative tea house to succeed.