nana’s green tea MACHIDA MODI
Tokyo, Japan / 2014
“Darkness”
Nanaha Co., Ltd. is a company that sends the “new form of Japan” to the world through “mattcha”. They provide high quality mattcha in menus that are arranged modernly, such as mattacha latte. The space inside the shop is desired to be a “modern tearoom”, not a “Japanese style tea room”. According to the owner, it is a way of expressing their feeling to make a shop that allows the customers to enjoy the traditional Japanese culture with a modern interpretation.
Joo Takeno (1502~1555), the master of Sen no Rikyuu, is said to have put great importance on the question “what is the perfect luminance for a tea room”. According to a document written by Sosa Ikenaga, one of Joo Takeno’s pupils, it is not so good to make the tea room too bright as it will make the equipment of tea ceremonies look seedy. It is also written that in those days, they displayed rare and beautiful tea equipment in the tea rooms for the guests to enjoy. We can, therefore, know that Joo Takeno thought that “tea rooms shouldn’t be bright”. Moreover, it is said that he meant to describe the deepness of spiritual nature by holding down the light.
In nana’s green tea MACHIDA MODI, I had coordinated the whole space in “black” and described the light shining in from the window by a wall light in order to make as if everything would blend into the darkness and vanish. I am suggesting a space that expresses the “spiritual nature” in such dimness.
Photos by Keisuke Miyamoto
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