Intimate vs Gigantic: The Temaeza Challenge

More than 15 years ago, I had the privilege to make tea for Eric Lloyd Wright and Mary Wright atop the construction site of their home-to-be overlooking the Malibu Cove and the Pacific Ocean. Eric, who passed away at the age of 92 in March 2023, was Frank Lloyd Wright's grandson and a Taliesin Fellow, meaning that he not only grew up but also apprenticed with his grandfather in Wisconsin, and Arizona. Mary is an accomplished artist and taught painting in Japan for many years in the 1950s. Each has been deeply committed to maintaining sustainable lifestyle very close to the land as the events of Wright Organic Resource Center testify. 

Eric continued design and built in the signature "organic architecture" style of his grandfather, where building and surroundings engage each other to create a style of life akin to living with  nature, not merely in it. This was to be their family "house", but it was a dream never fulfilled as a residence. Rather, it remains a living sculpture in nature, site of many community gatherings, film soots and a place "just" to be quiet in nature. 

Like a temae, its most "outstanding feature is that it is literally not out-standing; it cannot be seen from any road or from any other spot on the 24 acres upon which it rests. When the structural concrete pour (walls, floor, internal supports) was completed, the adjacent hillside at the “back” of the building, a site sacred to native Chumash peoples and those of us who honor the natural forces of life, was pushed against the "back" wall. The soil carpetes the roof, blends into the profile of the "second" (there are interior stairs) story and formed part of the wall of the entryway.  It is seamlessly connected to the earth.

It was on the top of the plywood for the roof that set up my goza, straw mat, and prepared to establish temaeza, the place where tea is made. I needed to have electrical power for my kama heating element, so they pulled one of the power cords from the construction site up the ladder to the top. The cord was so long that I decided to coil it neatly into what I decided was my kare sansui (raked sand) garden.

                               

The biggest challenge, however was to determine which way the guests would face. The ocean vista was remarkable, but I realized, too big for the intimacy of temae, so I had them face a set of rebars set against the hillside, looking very much like a furosaki byobu of bamboo. 

It’s a powerful decision to turn one’s back to hugeness, but essential to establish a barrier to cultivate the notion of intimacy and camaraderie. 

There is a reason that the nijiriguchi, small hatchway entrance to a tea hut, is one of the key elements of chashitsu design: to draw into narrow-focus the mind and heart toward the matter at hand. 

In chanoyu, 

large becomes small; 

small becomes large. 

Like organic architecture, 

it all drops 

away, 

anyway.