As I continue to reflect on my tea ceremony experience, as well as research into the intricacies of the practice and its foundations, I am still wondering how this ritual would fit into an Australian context, even more so, how the ritual could benefit those who experience it.
The traditional Japanese tea ceremony celebrates the change of a new season, the four principles that encompass it allow the guests to slow down through methodically designed elements that bring tranquillity to the forefront of the experience.
As I travelled to Perth city on a Monday morning, through the hustle and bustle of the train station, I thought perhaps those working within the CBD would most benefit from the experience of the tea ceremony. Although this concept presented some challenges, the typical typology of a Japanese tea house is usually that of a small timber structure hidden amongst a Japanese garden, which differs vastly from that of a city centre.
I looked to modern reiterations of the tea house for a better understanding as to how the four principles of the ceremony were expressed through contemporary sites and architecture. Kengo Kuma’s Vancouver tea house, as previously mentioned, requires guests to travel to the rooftop of a high-rise building before reaching the tea house, and by doing so creates a sense of journey and escape.
With notions of a journey and escape at the forefront of selecting a site, I proposed that bringing people a short distance out of the city would facilitate these ideas and create a similar experience to the one I had in Kyoto.
