Teahouse for earthquake

Today I saw in the National Museum of Modern Art this building made out of cardboard and wood. A teahouse with tokonoma inside presented at the entrance of the museum. Here you had to bow even deeper than at the House of Joke (see yesterday’s blog) to get inside.

Students from the art university explained me that it was a teahouse for temporary use. Because of the earthquake last march in Japan, we can’t make things anymore for eternity, so we have to think about temporary housing. The stones that surrounded the teahouse made a barrier for privacy. The open ceiling could represent the proximity to nature.

An interesting idea to think not only at the useful space for eating and sleeping, but to continue the beauty and simplicity of the teahouse even in difficult times. Although I think that the cardboard and an open ceiling are not really helpful to experience a safe and refined feeling.

Homeless people could help to make something more flexible and sustainable.