The Japanese Teahouse
Wolfgang Fehrer
Japanese culture and architecture have always fascinated the Western world. One particular, architecturally complex building type at the intersection of multiple currents of Japanese philoso-phy, art and esthetics is the Japanese teahouse. It is a very private place of meditation, a place where only those may enter who have been invited, in which the host communicates with his or her guests through the medium of tea in the context of the strictly regimented ceremony.
This volume expands the reader’s knowledge of the built space that makes this tea ceremony possible. The author explores the philosophical background as well as the stylistic and spatial prin-ciples. He takes the reader on a cultural-historical and architectural journey through time, from the beginnings in the 15th century, when the art of the tea ceremony as well as the space in which it took place were recorded for the first time, to the present day, when the design and construction of a teahouse is still perceived in Japan as a great chal-lenge for designers and architects.
Wolfgang Fehrer lives and works as an architect in a managerial capacity in Switzerland. He received his education at the Technical University in Vienna. In the course of numerous visits to Japan he has had the opportunity to learn and study the culture and architecture of that country in-depth. It was above all the spatial intensity and cultural density of the teahouses that had aroused his interest ever since the first participation in a tea ceremony.
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