Sutemi Horiguchi & Yoshiro Taniguchi －Architects Enchanted by Japanese Teahouses

Kanazawa’s cultural identity is epitomized by the tea ceremony. Architect Yoshiro Taniguchi, born into a Kutani-ware kiln family, developed his own aesthetic sensibility while watching his parents host tea gatherings in Isshu-an—an Edo-period teahouse relocated to their residence. By contrast, Sutemi Horiguchi, Taniguchi’s senior at university, gradually moved from the forefront of modernism into the world of tea, eventually becoming a leading scholar of teahouse design. Through tea masters such as Jian Matsunaga, the two architects explored new possibilities for the sukiya style and produced outstanding works, including Hasshokan (1950) and Yushintei (1974). Drawing primarily on the Horiguchi materials held by the National Archives of Modern Architecture and the Taniguchi materials held by the Taniguchi and Associates, this exhibition reexamines twentieth-century Japanese culture and traces the careers of two architects who helped shape postwar Japanese-style architecture.