Since the end of the ancient era in Japan the space of ke for domestic, internal daily life developed more than the space of hare for ceremonies and external services. By dividing the internal space with shoji screens and fusuma paper panels small units were made with tatami straw mats on the floor. The perfected form of this internal space is the shoin-zukuri, which is the prototype of the washitsu, the Japanese-style room which we now commonly imagine. The shoin-zukuri was established during the transitional period between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. When we look at the development and differentiation of Japanese living space from the viewpoint of global architectural history, we realize the exceptional excellence and sophistication of design in relation to the choice of materials and a scale based on human physicality.

The most distinctive character of Japanese living space is the use of a soft material, tatami straw mat made of woven igusa plant for the floor. Outside of Japan, for example, in Europe, there is a tradition of wooden buildings in which the floors have never been made soft. China once had a culture of living on the floor, but in the early days, chairs wiped out the lifestyle of living on one’s knees. On floors covered with soft tatami mats, one can either kneel directly or lie down. We traditionally had this particularly compact space and a way to relate to buildings. The modern living space in Japan was prepared on the premise of the challenge of how design items can be concentrated in a limited space such as sukiya, which is even smaller than shōin. So many Japanese residences from the modern era to the present do not necessarily have washitsu Japanese-style rooms with tatami mats at all. And yet, we Japanese have not lost the memories of a humanely physical relationship to architecture through the action of kneeling on the floor and sitting on a part of a building. Rather, we are rediscovering the value of the past.

If the core of Japanese architecture exists in the physicality of the human body, the body is most evidently exposed, more than on the floor, in the space of the bath. Isn’t this a pivot of architecture from modern to contemporary? In this exhibition, we re-capture through images and models the meaning of “bath”, which could not be at the centre of the discussion of residential architecture.

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