Uji-City (宇治市)

So after a whirlwind few days in Tokyo which included a proper whirlwind (aka typhoon) and a national holiday I arrived at my destination - Kyoto.

The house, "my" house, was described to me by my dear friend Mineko some months ago as "a very old house".  This being Japan, I thought, hmm, 12th Century, 17th Century?  It is in fact a wonderful example of mid-20th-Century Japanese modern design, which I adore.  Clean lines with both modern and traditional Japanese details.  I knew, I could see it even as I walked down the street with my hundred pounds of luggage - this place was cool.

The garden was perhaps a little unkempt by Japanese standards, but it set the mood with a large sculpted/un-sculpted pine.  Her parents gave me the key and asked me to open the lightweight door with two slender, rectangular inset glass pains.  The door opened onto a tiny foyer of black river rock and concrete.  We left our shoes there and moved through the house opening windows and letting out more than 6 months of warm, stale air.

I couldn't believe this place.  As an American, or anyone from the Western world, we have certain ideas about what a Japanese house should look like.  For me this has been fed almost exclusively by Ozu and Kurasawa films.  We want to see tatami mats in the rooms.  We want to see sliding wood-paned doors and windows.  We want to see bamboo.  We want to see a hanging scroll.  We want to duck slightly when we pass from room to room to avoid banging our heads.  All here.

There is an incredible weightlessness to Japanese architecture of this period, an ease of movement from indoor to outdoor.  Everything has a function, or in some cases multiple functions.  There is no unnecessary ornamentation or bulk.  The space feels almost transient, as if it could be lifted up and relocated without much effort.  It is easy to see how American and European architects of the 1950s were in awe and greatly influenced by the buildings here.

But yeah, this is my home for the moment.  Domo arigato Ito-san!