East Asian Art Ceremonial Teahouse: Sunkaraku (Evanescent
Joys)Made in Tokyo, Japan, Asia Designed by Ōgi Rodō, Japanese,
1863 - 1941 Wood, bamboo, stone, metal, rush, plaster, paper,
ceramic, fabric, and mulberry bast cord 1928-114-1Purchased with
Museum funds, 1928 This ceremonial teahouse was built in about
1917 by the Japanese architect Ögi Rodö. Designed in the rustic
tradition or "artless style" of the fifteenth-century artist
Oguri Sotan, it also incorporates eighteenth-century elements.
The Sunkaraku teahouse originally stood on the grounds of Rodö's
private residence in Tokyo. He sold it to the Museum in 1928,
and in 1957 it was installed at the Museum, making it the only
work by Rodö outside Japan. The garden setting you see now was
planned by one of Japan's foremost contemporary garden
designers, Matsunosuke Tatsui. The apparent artlessness of the
teahouse in fact conceals acute attention to detail and to
aesthetic pleasure. The architecture of both the waiting room
and the tearoom reveals a specia