koma　小間

KEY WORD :　architecture / tea houses

A small tea ceremony room, from two to four and a half mats in size, which best encompasses the characteristics of the rustic style *wabi わび. The smallest size plan is one mat plus one small mat, ichijoudaime 一畳台目, for example, the Kanden'an 菅田庵 in Shimane prefecture. Because one mat is necessary for a guest *temaedatami 点前畳; and one mat for the host *dougudatami 道具畳, the tea ceremony cannot be performed with fewer than two mats. The utensils, dougu 道具, are placed on the host's mat. Ichijoudatami is a plan wherein the length of the host's mat is shortened to three quarters the size of a regular mat. Thus shortened, it is called *daimedatami 台目畳. In this type of tea ceremony room the firebox must be positioned on the host's mat and is called the inner firebox *iriro 入炉. The next larger sizes, in order, are: nijou 二畳 (two normal size mats); nijou daime 二畳台目 (two normal plus one small mat), sanjou 三畳 (three normal mats), sanjou daime 三畳台目 (three normal mats plus one smaller mat), yojou 四畳 (four normal mats), and if desired a half-size mat can be added to this also to make the common four and a half mat *yojouhan, 四畳半 tea ceremony room. There are various ways of laying mats in a tea ceremony room limited to three regular size mats and one smaller one. For example, these may be positioned in a row, left to right with the smaller mat at one end. There is a wide plan called hirasanjou daime 平三畳台目. The same mats might also be positioned to form a deep plan, fukasanjou daime 深三畳台目, from front to rear with the smaller mat usually following the third mat at the rear. If there are four normal size mats, they may be laid either in a line side by side, right to left, or front to rear. In either case, the arrangement is called nagayojou 長四畳. In 4 1/2 mat tea ceremony rooms the host's mat or utensil mat is a single normal size or a smaller size mat, and the sunken firebox can be cut on a different mat. In this case, it is called the outer firebox *dero 出炉.

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