Part 10 (1/2)
The Zen Aesthetics of j.a.panese Architecture
_Architecturally [the Zen-inspired Silver Pavilion's] chief interest lies in the compromise which it exhibits between religious and domestic types, and a new style of living apartments (called _shoin_) which specialists regard as the true forerunner of the j.a.panese dwelling.
_George B. Sansom_, j.a.pan: A Short Cultural History
Traditional Zen-style house
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_Traditional interior w/ Zen art alcove
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ASK ANY j.a.pANESE why the traditional j.a.panese house is bitterly cold in winter and uncomfortably hot in summer, and he will unfailingly tell you that the design is historically adapted to the climate. Inquire about his purpose in rejecting furniture, thus to kneel daylong on a straw floor mat, and he will explain that the mat is more comfortable.
Question his preference for sleeping on a wadded cotton floor pallet instead of a conventional mattress and springs, and he will reply that the floor provides surer rest. What he will not say, since he a.s.sumes a Westerner cannot comprehend it, is that through these seeming physical privations he finds shelter for the inner man.
The exquisite traditional j.a.panese house has been compared to an outsized umbrella erected over the landscape, not dominating its surroundings but providing a shaded s.p.a.ce for living amid nature. The outside resembles a tropical hut, while the inside is an interworking of Mondrian geometries. Together they represent the culmination of a long tradition of defining and handling interior s.p.a.ce, using natural materials, and integrating architecture and setting. The j.a.panese house is one of those all too rare earthly creations that transcend the merely utilitarian, that attend as closely to man's interior needs as to his physical comfort.
The cla.s.sic house evolved over two millennia through the adaptation and blending of two dissimilar architectural traditions--the tropical nature shrine, which was part of the s.h.i.+nto religion of the early immigrants to j.a.pan, and the Chinese model, beginning with the palace architecture of the T'ang dynasty and culminating in the designs used in the monasteries of Chinese Ch'an Buddhism. The early immigrants, the Yayoi, today are believed to have arrived from points somewhere to the South, bringing a theology that defied the earth, the sun, and all the processes of nature. Their shrines to these G.o.ds were like conventional Oceanic huts. Thanks to a peculiar quirk of s.h.i.+nto, which dictates that certain of these wood-and-thatch shrines be dismantled and built anew every two decades, it is still possible to see these lovely structures essentially as they were two millennia ago. Spartan and elegant in their simplicity, they were lyrically described by the nineteenth- century Western j.a.panophile, Lafcadio Hearn:
_The typical shrine is a windowless oblong building of un-painted timber with a very steep overhanging roof; the front is a gable end; and the upper part of the perpetually closed doors is a wooden latticework--usually a grating of bars closely set and crossing each other at right angles. In most cases the structure is raised slightly above the ground on wooden pillars; and the queer peaked facade, with its visorlike apertures and the fantastic projections of beamwork above its gable-angle, might remind the European traveler of old gothic forms of dormer There is no artificial color. The plain wood soon turns, under the action of rain and sun, to a natural gray varying according to surface exposure from a silvery tone of birch bark to a somber gray of basalt.1
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_Although the early immigrants lived first in caves and later in roofed pits dug into the earth, by the beginning of the Christian Era the aristocracy was building elevated dwellings on posts, with roofs supported not by the walls but by a central horizontal ridge pole suspended between two large columns at either end of the structure.2
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It was, in fact, identical to the s.h.i.+nto shrine design described by Hearn. As a home for the s.h.i.+nto G.o.ds, this tropical design may well have been adequate, since nature spirits are presumably adapted to the rigors of a j.a.panese winter, but the Yayoi must have found that it enforced an unwelcome communion with the seasons. Even so, Hearn's description could be applied almost without alteration to the external qualities of the traditional dwelling as it finally evolved. One still finds the thatch roof, the use of pillars to suspend the floor above the ground, unfinished natural wood, and the virtual absence of nails.
During the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. the early j.a.panese became aware of the complex Chinese culture on the Asian mainland, and by the beginning of the eighth century they had forsworn the primitive tropical architecture of s.h.i.+nto and begun to surround themselves with palaces and temples modeled on the Chinese. During the Heian era, a Chinese-inspired aristocrat dwelling developed which represented a compromise between j.a.panese requirements and Chinese models. Although influenced by T'ang Chinese palaces, it was the first indigenous j.a.panese architectural style and is known as _s.h.i.+nden_.
The _s.h.i.+nden _mansion was a sprawling complex dominated by a main building facing a pond, around which were flanked ancillary structures connected to it by open galleries protected only by a roof. These open galleries, being very much the fas.h.i.+on, were also built around the outside of all the larger rooms and served as pa.s.sageways. There were no solid walls inside the buildings; privacy was obtained by curtains and two-part horizontal doors hinged at the top and attached to the ceiling. Adopting Chinese construction methods, j.a.panese began roofing the buildings with dark clay tiles instead of native thatch, and walls were frequently surfaced with clay rather than wood planks or woven straw. Exterior woods were painted Chinese vermilion instead of being left to age naturally.
Furnis.h.i.+ngs were meager, and rooms were not identified according to usage; the building was one large area temporarily divided according to the needs of the moment. Instead of chairs there were movable floor mats of woven straw, while around the exterior of the rooms there were heavy shutters; these could be removed in summer or replaced by light bamboo blinds, which rolled down like window shades. Lighting was not a prominent feature of _s.h.i.+nden _mansions, and in winter the aristocracy huddled around a smoky fire in almost total darkness, the price of seeing being to open the blinds and freeze.
The _s.h.i.+nden_ style suppressed for a time the indigenous affection for simplicity and unadorned natural materials revealed in the earlier, pre-Heian dwellings. However, it was never really naturalized, and it was eventually to be remembered in j.a.pan's architectural history largely as an aberrant interlude, whose major legacy was the sense of openness or fluid s.p.a.ce in the cla.s.sic Zen house.
When the _samurai _warriors of the Kamakura era (1185-- 1333) a.s.sumed power, they did not immediately disown the architectural styles of the Heian n.o.bles, but merely added (or, in some cases, removed) features in response to their martial needs and their new Zen outlook. As the country was at war, there was no logic in detached rooms and open galleries, and the _samurai _immediately tightened up the design, putting the entire house under one roof. They eliminated the pond and added a surrounding board fence for protection, even as interior curtains and hinged doors were replaced by sliding doors of paper over a wooden frame. And as rooms became more clearly identified, they were defined in terms of function. The early influence of Zen was seen most noticeably in the gradual disappearance of the ornamental aspects of _s.h.i.+nden _design as the _samurai _came to prize austerity and frugality.
During the As.h.i.+kaga era (1333-1573) which followed, when Zen monks a.s.sumed the role of advisers and scribes for the illiterate military rulers, a special writing desk, called a _shoin_,
appeared in the houses of the more influential _samurai_. The _shoin _was a window alcove with a raised sill, which overlooked a private garden and was used by the monks for reading and writing. Next to this was a _chigai-dana_, a wall cabinet recessed in a niche and used for storing papers and writing, utensils. (These new domestic appointments had been lifted by the Zen monks directly from the chief abbot's study in Chinese Ch'an monasteries.) The _shoin _study room immediately became a focus of fas.h.i.+on among the _samurai_, even those who could neither read nor write, and before long it was the finest room in a house. Guests began to be received there and another feature from Zen monasteries was added: the art-display alcove, or tokonoma. (In Chinese Ch'an monasteries the _tokonoma _was a special shrine before which monks burned incense, drank ceremonial tea, and contemplated religious artwork. That such a shrine should appear in a reception room of a social-climbing _samurai_'s house is vivid testimony to the pervasive influence of the Zen monk advisers.) The _samurai_ also added an entry vestibule called a _genkan_, still another feature drawn from Zen temples. As a result of all these additions and modifications, _s.h.i.+nden_ architecture was completely transformed into a functional _samurai _house whose style became known as _shoin_. Forgotten were the Chinese tile roofs and vermilion paint; thatch and unfinished woods reappeared. Paradoxically, the supplanting of _s.h.i.+nden _design by _shoin _was in many ways merely the ousting of a T'ang Chinese style by a Sung Chinese style. However, the T'ang architecture had been that of the Chinese court, whereas the Sung was drawn from Ch'an monasteries and coincidentally contained many of the aesthetic ideals of the earlier native j.a.panese dwellings and shrines.
By the waning years of the As.h.i.+kaga era, the _shoin _design had influenced virtually every aspect of j.a.panese architecture, bringing into being almost all the qualities of what is now thought of as the traditional j.a.panese house. The movable floor mats were replaced by wall-to-wall _tatami_, woven straw mats bound with a dark fabric band at either end and standardized to a size of approximately three by six feet. Soon rooms were being defined in terms of the number of _tatami _required for the floor--and modular architecture had been invented.
Sliding, but removable paper part.i.tions called _fusuma_ became the standard room dividers, and the _tokonoma_ became less a religious shrine than a secular display case where vertical monochrome scrolls and flower arrangements were put on view. Oddly enough, one of the few Chinese innovations the j.a.panese persistently chose to ignore was the chair. As a result, a j.a.panese residence has always maintained an entry vestibule where footwear is removed, something unnecessary for the Chinese, who had no reason to consider the floor a couch and could keep their shoes on. One important side effect of this choice is that eye level in the j.a.panese room--that is, the level from which the room, its art, and its appointments are viewed--has remained significantly lower than in houses with furniture, a characteristic that influences the placement of art as well as the layout of the accompanying garden.