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NARRATOR: In New York on West 54th
Street between 5th and 6th Avenues
in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art, there is a house.
It is the third house built on the site
during the last six years.
The first two were contemporary American,
this one representing 16th and 17th century
prototypes is Japanese.
It was presented to the museum on behalf
of the people of Japan and accepted
as a recognition of the unique relevance
to modern Western architecture of traditional Japanese design.
A house of this style might have been
built by a scholar, a government official, or a priest,
someone with the training and the leisure for reading
and writing, someone having use for a desk.
A desk is called a shoin in Japanese.
And a house containing a shoin is
called a shoin-zukori which means literally the desk
way of building.
The building in this case was done in Japan in 1953.
It was designed by Junzo Yoshimura.
Shipped to the United States, it was reassembled
in the spring of 1954 with great care and the usual precautions.
The precautions extended from the prevention of fingermarks
on columns by the use of cloth wrappings
to the formal exorcizing of evil spirits.
The raising of the ridgepole required
not only carpenters and other workmen
but a religious ceremony complete with paper prayers
and the right kinds of food.
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Among the early visitors was the prime minister of Japan.
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The idea that a house is a roof is not an unusual one
but the Japanese have developed it to an unusual extent.
They regard the roof as the most expressive
architectural element.
And when they speak of the beauty of a building,
they think at once of the proportions, the shapes,
the modeling and texture of the roof.
There are two decisive elements, the structural cage below
and the roof above.
One expressing the characteristic sense
of construction, the other the sense of shelter.
Both elements are required to make a home into a house.
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Sand originally was used in temple courtyards
to purify the sites of religious ceremonies.
Now it is standard garden material.
The designs, raked or drawn, still
may evoke a vague sense of something more
but the primary purpose is decoration.
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A house is a roof and so the thickness of the eaves
sometimes is exaggerated to produce
an illusion of greater weight and density stimulating
the sense of shelter.
The rafters are suspended from the beams
and are not structural.
They provide as it were a decorative echo of the cage
beneath.
Such decorative repetition being one of the characteristics
of Japanese building.
A fake structural member sometimes
is added to suggest that beams cross through each other.
Similar effects in painting are called sorogoto
or "the faults made to seem true."
The fictitious is added to heighten a valid effect.
There are two sets of doors, outer doors of wood
and inner ones of paper, both may be removed entirely.
The floors are covered with rice straw mats usually about 3
by 6 feet in size and the area of a room
is indicated by the number of mats.
Tables, screens, boxes and bedding
are stored away when not actually in use.
The house itself is like a huge piece of furniture.
The desk or shoin is built in.
Cushions are used instead of chairs,
there's a profound absence of clutter.
It would violate the Japanese sense of the fitness of things.
Space is empty and a house along with being a roof
is an arrangement of space.
The alcove is not so much for the display of works of art
as for their contemplation.
It is felt that paintings are seen at a disadvantage
when strung along a wall.
A certain seclusion is essential to the enjoyment
of delicate and subtle effects.
Space, light, air, openness of plan
and lightness of appearance are essential to the conception
of a house.
The 20th century taste for open interiors and plain surfaces
are Japanese ideas which we have begun
to develop in our own way, a transom
breaks up space while keeping a sense of openness.
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The pantry separates the kitchen from the rest of the house.
Food is arranged on the bottom shelf for serving.
The preservation of the natural curves
of the tree trunk in a wooden beam
reflects the tendency to use simple natural forms
to suggest other forms.
Naturally, the tendency works both ways.
The beam suggests the tree and the tree suggests the beam.
Nature and art are thus united reciprocally.
There are certain minimal requirements for a kitchen,
food has to be cooked so there are ovens.
There has to be a sink, a charcoal fire
is kept going on the hearth.
Since food like so many things Japanese
tends to be decorative its preparation may be complicated.
The sink and drain board are in effect
the aesthetic altar where a large part of the ritual
is performed.
No one who ever has experienced the delight of removing
a lid from a red lacquer bowl to discover an elaborately carved
radish floating in a clear broth, will have anything
but respect for the discipline involved.
It is a discipline not unassociated
with a sort of mythological approach
which is peculiarly Japanese.
Sashimi for example, is sliced raw carp and a great delicacy.
The actual preparation of this dish
involves quite a lot of work.
The mythical recipe changes all that.
The live fish is simply placed on a plate
and some soy is dropped in one eye.
Immediately the carp which is incidentally
a symbol of persistence leaps upward in a final struggle
and then falls apart in many pieces.
Ovens are made of earth and white plaster which is waxed.
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Plumbing is one of the simpler things about a Japanese house.
The bathtub is a wooden box from which
there is a view of the garden which should traditionally
be very wet and very dark.
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Four and a half mats, a sunken hearth,
a view of the garden, an alcove or tokonoma, the tea room
is called the abode of fancy, the abode of vacancy,
the abode of the unsymmetrical.
It is dedicated to the ritual of the tea ceremony.
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A post supports a tree.
A tree becomes a post.
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