‘Glass Tea House - KOU-AN’ which made its debut at the 54th La Biennale di Venezia in 2011, and which was also unveiled to great acclaim on the Shogunzuka Seiryu-den stage, Tendai Sect Shoren-in, Kyoto, is coming to the National Art Center, Tokyo, together with the unique and lauded ‘Water Block’ glass bench, which is part of the Paris Musée d’Orsay collection.

The Japanese reverence for nature, perceptualizing energy, is embedded in the time-honoured Japanese tea ceremony. This installation will be re-created in the open air, revisiting the very roots of Japanese culture through, and transcending time and space. The viewer is thus afforded the opportunity to appreciate its constantly changing reflections and expressions under natural light.

The “Glass Tea House” does not feature traditional scrolls or Ikebana, Japanese flower arrangement, the usual embellishments associated with a tea house. Instead, by using glass, the resulting architecture delights and confounds the eye, creating a glistening water surface under the shower of natural light, with light refracted by a crystal prism sculpture turning into a rainbow of ‘flowers made of light’. In the absence of physical components, this ‘architecture of light’ reaches poetic and thought-provoking dimensions.

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