My colleague Kaname Yanagisawa and I were touring a wonderfully new school facility a few months back in Japan and I noticed a strange thing. New school designs have taken to providing what are called "Japanese Rooms" - what I could might rather call a Japanese Culture Studio, an attempt within the school to teach traditional Japanese rituals such as the tea ceremony. However, I noticed something out of place. Viewing through this beautiful traditional Japanese room with tatami mats and shoji screens was a perfect view of...the school parking lot! What is wrong with this picture?
Clearly, if you compare with the picture on the right, there is somthing missing from our new school's Japanese room - a view of NATURE! Could it be that all the focus on teaching kids about tea ceremonies inside the space, educators (and architects) forgot the critical importance of the inside-outside connection in traditional Japanese architecture? Or does it just provide an object lesson in the modern Japanese society? Certainly, the whole reason Japanese rooms have become all the craze in new school design is precisely the sense of urgency in educating their young in traditional ways, before this cultural knowledge is completely lost. Unfortunately, in this case, the design appears to be lost in translation...
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