Image courtesy of Le Stanze del Vetro

Glass Tea House Mondrian by Hiroshi Sugimoto

The “Glass Tea House Mondrian” is a new initiative from those organized by Le Stanze del Vetro, broadening its horizons, and involving internationally renowned artists to plan and design an architectural pavilion for Le Stanze del Vetro, following the example of the “Pavilion Series” of the Serpentine Gallery in London.

Image courtesy of Le Stanze del Vetro

The “Glass Tea House Mondrian” by Hiroshi Sugimoto is inspired by pre-modern abstraction, as perfected by Sen no Rikyû, in the Japanese tradition of the tea ceremony, “I decided that a Japanese transliteration of the name “Mondrian” would be an ideal name. I combined three characters – 聞鳥庵 – that betoken “a modest house where one can hear the birds sing.” I like to think that this tea house was designed by Mondrian after he heard Sen no Rikyû speaking to him through the singing of the birds”, says artist Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Image courtesy of Le Stanze del Vetro

The Pavilion consists of two main elements, an open-air landscape courtyard and an enclosed glass cube. Inspired by the Ise-shrine, the exterior fence around the pavilion is made entirely of cedar wood and realized through a contribution by Sumitomo Forestry Co. Ltd. Hiroshi Sugimoto and Sumitomo Forestry chose the cedar wood from the Tohoku region for their commitment in helping to reconstruct areas which were devastated by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Image courtesy of Le Stanze del Vetro

The long reflecting pool made of the glass mosaics at the centre of the landscape courtyard represents the other main feature of the installation; it leads the visitor to the key area of the pavilion, i.e. the glass tea house. The reflecting pool is made possible thanks to the collaboration with Fondazione Bisazza.

Image courtesy of Le Stanze del Vetro

The glass cube is made by Asahi Building-Wall Co. Ltd, a leading company in the production of architectural glass structures and engineering solutions for glass facades or structural building elements. The tea utensils used for the performance of the tea ceremony are designed by Hiroshi Sugimoto and produced by crafts men in Kyoto. On this occasion Hiroshi Sugimoto has designed a limited-edition glass tea bowl at Simone Cenedese’s furnace in Murano.

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