Entrance

Music Room in memory of Kaneko Yanagi

This room is in the north side of West Hall. Kaneko Yanagi (1892-1984), Yanagi’s wife, was one of the representative alto-vocalists in Japan. She began to devote herself in music activities from the very early stage of music industry in the beginning of Taisho period and greatly dedicated to the establishment of the Japanese modern song singing method. After the war, she became a professor of Kunitachi College of Music, and in 1965 she became a first woman who was awarded Imperial Prize of the Japan Art Academy. To celebrate her life, this room has been open to the public since April, 2010.

Courtyard

Dining Room

A gateleg table and ladder back chairs are arranged in this room. Yanagi family enjoyed their daily life surrounded by craftworks and paintings on the shelf or on the wall and splendid pieces of Western furniture, using tableware selected by Soetsu Yanagi. A Japanese-style tatami room with an alcove was equipped on a one-step higher floor and it makes this room half-Japanese and half-Western style.

Drawing Room

This room was built for Yanagi’s mother, Katsuko. An exterior corner of the alcove designed by Soetsu Yanagi is equipped and a stencil-dyed small sliding panel by Keisuke Serizawa, which is not ordinary on public display, has been set up. As a compartment, ‘fusuma’ of Kudzu fiber cloth is used and the whole space is surrounded by a soft and warm sunlight from the ‘shouji’ (paper sliding doors) in the south side.

The Study

The study of Soetsu Yanagi was situated on the center of the second floor. Soetsu engaged in writing and many excellent books of his on beauty of Mingei or Buddhist aesthetics were produced in this room. It is easy to imagine that Soetsu Yanagi concentrated on deep meditation and vigorous writing activities in this room where beautiful paintings on the wall, splendid craftworks at hand, a desk made by Tatsuaki Kuroda and many books to the ceiling surrounded him.