in both its architecture and garden, a number of methods are intermingled. Therefore, any discourse on Katsura finally confronts the task of expounding on the significance of the ambiguity created by the mix.”8 Isozaki concluded that Katsura needs to be appreciated “not as a transparently and systematically organized space in the sense of the modernists, but as a contingent, confused, ambiguous, over-layered, and opaque composition [that] induces a gorgeous pleasure in the space. The pleasure goes beyond or perhaps swallows all kinds of discourses. The secret of Katsura’s myth-provoking function exists there.”9
Plate 1-7 View of the veranda of the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura (Kanagawa Kenritsu Kindai Bijutsukan), 1951. Designed by Sakakura Junzō (1901–1969). Sakakura had worked for Le Corbusier in the 1930s. Despite its construction out of the modern materials of stone, concrete, and steel, Sakakura’s admiration for the Katsura Imperial Villa is evident in this building’s deep veranda and slender pillars set into stone supports. This museum building was the first significant public architecture in Japan after World War II.
SHIBUI
SUBTLE ELEGANCE
Shibui, the adjective form of the noun shibusa or shibumi, has the literal meaning of something possessing an astringent taste. Its usage dates back to the Muromachi period. By the seventeenth century, the term had come to describe a distinct sense of beauty, understated and well crafted, exquisite but not overly sweet, the opposite of showiness or gaudiness. The word conveys a sense of elegance and refinement, sophisticated simplicity, tranquility, natural imperfection, and modesty. It is closely associated with the wabi-sabi aesthetics of the Japanese tea ceremony of chanoyu, and is often used interchangeably with the word suki that is used to describe the aesthetic of tea rooms (sukiya).
Katsura figured prominently in the mind of Elizabeth Gordon (1906–2000), editor-in-chief of House Beautiful magazine from 1941 to 1964, when she set out to explain the beauty of Japanese design and its relevance to the modern American lifestyle in two issues of her magazine (August and September 1960). In fact, she used images of the complex on the cover of both these issues, declaring in the caption for the photograph of the main shoin buildings on the first issue’s cover that Katsura was “a distillation of all that is most beautiful in Japanese architecture, gardening, and interiors—a fitting first glimpse of an issue devoted to an interpretation of Japan and its centuries-old concepts of beauty expressed in all facets of daily life.”10 Gordon used the Japanese word shibui, which she described as “easy-to-live-with beauty,” as her overarching theme for these issues, titling the first, “Shibui—The Word for the Highest Level of Beauty,” and the second, “How to Be Shibui with American Things.” Following on the success of these issues, she organized a traveling exhibition on shibui that toured eleven American museums between 1961 and 1964.
Plate 1-8 Advertisement for Schumacher’s Shibui decorating fabrics and coordinated paints by Martin Senour, published in House Beautiful 102/9 (September 1960), p. 66. Elizabeth Gordon encouraged selected home furnishing and paint companies to manufacture “Shibui” lines of products.
Plate 1-9 Lobby of the Okura Hotel, Tokyo, 1962. Designed by Taniguchi Yoshiro (1904–1979). Unchanged since the time of its design, this quietly elegant room, with its white paper shōji screens accented with finely textured and patterned latticework, and pale wood ceiling and wall surfaces, reflects a contemporary interpretation of the shibui aesthetic in Japanese architectural design of the 1960s, influenced by interest then in the Katsura Imperial Villa.
Because Elizabeth Gordon was responsible for making this word, and related aesthetic concepts, the linchpin of the Japanese aesthetic vocabulary in the West, it is worth discussing why she chose to feature shibui and Japanese aesthetics generally in her magazine. Her initial interest in Japanese design followed her exposure to Japanese furnishings in the homes of Americans who had been in Japan during the early post-war Occupation period and the concurrent permeation of Japanese goods into the American marketplace. As editor of a prominent magazine for style-conscious readers, she wanted her magazine not only to reflect current fashions but to set them. A staunch advocate of a more comfortable alternative to the rigid anonymity of orthodox modernist architecture, Gordon initiated a “Pace Setter House” program in 1946 to showcase modern-style houses that she deemed humanistic and livable.11 Her attitude was much influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959; see page 130) and his concept of organic architecture. Indeed, two key members of her editorial team when she produced her Japan issues, Curtis Besinger (1914–1999) and John DeKoven Hill (1920–1996), were disciples of Wright.
The Sumiya, located in Kyoto’s historic Shimabara entertainment district, is the finest extant example of an Edo period ageya, an elegant restaurant and banquet hall where the highest ranking geisha (taiyū) entertained affluent male clients. Originally constructed in 1641, it was greatly expanded in 1787. Elizabeth Gordon prominently featured many illustrations of its rooms and architectural details in her August 1960 House Beautiful issue on shibui, though there she described it as “a famous Kyoto residence … now open to the public … a good example of the shoin style of architecture.”18 Although related aesthetically to Katsura, the Sumiya’s greater opulence derives from its function. In fact, it combined in a single structure both sukiya and shoin elements, which are seen in separate buildings at Katsura.
Plate 1-10 Interior of the Ajiro no Ma (Net Pattern Room) on the first floor of the Sumiya banquet hall, Shimabara licensed district, Kyoto. The room takes its name from the interlocking lattice pattern of the wooden ceiling planks.
Gordon’s highlighting of shibui was also tied to critiques of post-war American affluence raised by economist John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) in his popular book, The Affluent Society.12 Just months after that book’s release, Gordon editorialized about it in the November 1958 issue of House Beautiful, maintaining that “[t]aste, discrimination, and a maturing sense of appropriateness” was what she saw in the “homes of America.”13 As Robert Hobbs has observed, “[o]ver the next few years, her magazine embarked on an educational campaign to teach its readership to “discern differences between ostentation and true value.”14 This was the conceptual basis for her emphasis on shibui.
Gordon’s presentation of shibui was remarkably sophisticated, derived from her steadfast study of Japanese culture over a five-year period preceding her magazine’s feature issues in 1960. Her research included four field trips to Japan during 1959 and 1960, totaling sixteen months.15 She became acquainted with or quoted many authorities in her magazine, including Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904; see page 133) and Yanagi Sōetsu (1889–1961; see page 138), whom she met in Tokyo in December 1959 and whose definition of shibui she paraphrased at length.16 She also met or corresponded with a number of high-profile Japanese design professionals, including architect Yoshimura Junzō, one of the designers of the International House of Japan.
Although she titled her House Beautiful issue “Shibui,” she also introduced many other related Japanese aesthetic terms that she described as either dependent upon shibui (wabi-sabi, for example) or as expressing what she described as less exalted forms of beauty: hade (bright and exuberant beauty), iki (chic and sophisticated beauty), and jimi (somber and proper beauty).17
Plate 1-11 The inner courtyard garden adjacent to the Ajiro no Ma at the Sumiya.
