Fleur Pavilia

Shigeru Uchida believes design is the connection of ‘human’, ‘society’ and ‘nature’, and the way they co-exist in harmony.

For Uchida, time and space is inseparable. To design space, it is to design time. People gone through daily routines in their “everyday time”. They need a break from such time to recover their minds. Time of religion and rituals are the moments when people passes their transcendental time. When everyday time needs an everyday space, the break from everyday time also requires space that could liberate people’s mind.

People experiences prenatal regression when they crosses tearoom through nijiriguchi. The crossing of boundary is an invitation to refresh one’s body and mind. The vitality and energy for creativity is satisfied.

Unhid emphasized on the connection between interior space and landscape. Since the garden would be the focal point in Fleur Pavilion, an unexaggerated, simple and calm interior could create a cozy place of living.

Feminine sensitivity, being a source of movement against 20th century masculine theoretical is a key in the project. Echidna’s design is to regenerate sensitivities that human being have had originally, such as coexistence with nature, care towards each other and delicate sensations. The design of Fleur Pavilion aspired by internal substantiality, like tearooms that contain the modest and delicate aesthetic.

Craftsmanship is embodied not only through traditional techniques in material processing, such as texture of Japanese paper, bamboos, ceramics and woodworks. For Uchida, creation of microcosm with artifacts and natural object harmoniously integrating with each other is of utmost importance.

Unhid has noted that in the 20th century, “weakness” has been overcame and human headed for things powerful to create a strong society. Modern society achieved “strength” by eliminating things that were not within the bounds of modern rationalism such as things that are inefficient, invisible, intangible, ambiguous and irregular. Modern rationalism determined logical objectivity of scientific technology and industrial technology as the universal value. Unique cultures, history, customs, traditions were cut off and depreciated as systems of the past. Unhid observed that these traditions still exist in Japan. Tea ceremony is perceived to be a method for deeper exchange of the mind by contemplating ‘human relations’, ‘relationship between humans and nature’ and ‘meaning of life’. Unhid believes instead of eliminating these cultures, new attribute could be created by their fusion. His team has continued to create tearooms, which are adapted to the present with different forms and styles from the past. They hold a stern belief that the spirit of tea ceremony has been in no way altered.

In this project, they have incorporated three major interior elements. First, it is the public area as neutral zone to connect outside and inside landscape. Unhid compared it to the Engawa-verandah as the realm of neutral, and as the “SO-KUKAN”, the simple place to shine the landscape. The second is the partition design. They adopted translucent materials to enable beautiful scenery to and from the garden, at the same time securing privacy by soft division of facilities and public area. The last element is the facility design. Each space has independent interior and sufficient modern sensibility while connected seamlessly with the public space. Echidna’s design of Fleur Pavilion contains mutual influences of these elements with each other.