Sukiya Style

数寄屋 / 16th century– / Style / Traditional Japanese Architecture

The light, informal residential style born of tea-ceremony aesthetics: slender posts, bark-edged timber, earthen walls and shoji light that let material nature and empty space become the quality of the room. Katsura became modernism's pilgrimage site.

Slender posts, light roofs / Bark-edged timber and earthen walls / Diffuse shoji light / Continuity with the garden

Sukiya Style — 桂離宮（CC BY-SA 3.0） — 桂離宮（CC BY-SA 3.0）／桂離宮松琴亭（CC BY-SA 4.0）／松琴亭の窓（CC BY 4.0）

Sukiya Style — 桂離宮松琴亭（CC BY-SA 4.0） — 桂離宮（CC BY-SA 3.0）／桂離宮松琴亭（CC BY-SA 4.0）／松琴亭の窓（CC BY 4.0）

Dictionary entry

Best used for: Comparing primary sources and canonical works · Extracting principles that transfer to other media
Type: Observe the letters, signs and scale of reference works
Composition: Extract the one structure that governs gaze and information
Material: Verify the materials and behaviors specific to era, region and process
Caution: Don't reduce it to surface signs. Verify the context of era, region, technology and makers.
Further study: Katsura Imperial Villa / Bruno Taut's 'discovery' / Isoya Yoshida's modern sukiya

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