Search Results for: byobu

On the Blind’s Side…Sudare and Curtains

Sudare are bamboo blinds used to screen out the sun and stay cool during the hot summer months in Japan. The blinds keep out the sun’s rays, while letting the breeze blow through. They also offer a modicum of privacy when doors and windows are thrown open (in a hopeful attempt to catch the aforementioned breeze). Traditionally hand-crafted, the art of making sudare has been lost to inexpensive imports from China, although craftsmen do still exist (particularly in Kyoto) and antique and vintage examples can be found at shrine sales and antique shops. Fancy sudare have decorative brocade trim around the edges, elaborate cording with tassels and engraved metal hooks to hold the blinds rolled open.

A typical view of a house in high sun in Kyoto, with sudare hanging over the veranda and front windows.

The decorative arts offer proof of the use of sudare through the ages. One of the first images that springs to mind is this amazing 17th century byobu (Japanese screen) depicting “The Tale of Genji” in the collection of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. If you click on it to enlarge, you can see sudare hanging in the doorways and windows.

More recent Edo and Meiji period byobu create a direct window view using a trompe l’oeil sudare. This charming screen was for sale at the Heiwajima Antiques Fair.

A second one, styled in an apartment filled with Japanese objects – split tansu, map of old Tokyo, and shoji lanterns.

Built in 1878, the Fujiya Hotel was the first hotel in Japan that catered to Western tourists. It is an absolute fantasy of a building – all Victorianism and Japonism scrambled together and should not be missed by anyone interested in either. The grand dining room, built in 1930, has amazing botanical frescoes on the ceilings, carved ranma (transom) panels, and the loveliest decorative sudare I have ever seen. They are hard to see in the photo below, but I couldn’t resist the view of the building and the autumn foliage out the window.

The detail is a little easier to see in this photo.

So how to use my sudare in a modern interior? I have always loved the look of matchstick blinds hung behind curtains and if you open any decorating magazine today, it seems as if everyone else does too. Joni at Cote de Texas has an amazing post about curtains, both with and without blinds, and great suggestions on hanging curtains in all kinds of situations. To hang the blind correctly, you mount it on the outside of the window, filling the space between the window frame and the curtain rod, which has been hung as close to the ceiling as possible to maximize the illusion of height.

So, the plan is to take this window in the den/extra bedroom of the beach house (sorry for the poor photo – room under renovation)…

and add this lovely Indian block print fabric (Cream Hibiscus Flower Buta) from Aleta Fabrics…

or possibly this one (Aleta’s Cream Hibiscus Flower Branch), as floor length curtains hung from a slim aged brass curtain rod from Gracious Home (more on my love of aged unprotected brass another time)…

using the sudare from the top of the post as the blind.

Aleta’s fabrics were featured in the to-die-for apartment of Nancy Tilghman, designed by Daniel Sachs, in the October 2010 issue of House Beautiful, including the Cream Hibiscus Branch fabric which was used on a chair in the bedroom. The bedroom has just the feel of what I want the den/extra bedroom to look like, although taking the children into consideration, perhaps a little darker color scheme.

Image credits: 1,4,6,7,9 &12. me, 2. from il-ne-kore, 3. Property of Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, photo via The Curated Object, 5. Okura Oriental Art, 8. via Cote de Texas, 10 & 11. from Aleta Online, 13. October 2010 House Beautiful, photographed by Ngoc Minh Ngo

Oct 19, 2010 By tokyojinja in Interior Design, Renovation and Decoration Report, Textiles Tags: byobu, curtains, textiles, The Tale of Genji

A Masterful Modern Mixmaster…John F. Saladino

“Any fragments from the past, especially those that you can touch, connect you to the makers of those pieces, making you aware that we are threads in a great tapestry of time.”
John Saladino

Often referred to as the “designer’s designer”, John Saladino has been at the absolute top of the design field for over 30 years. He works not only as an interior designer but also as an architectural designer, landscape designer, and in this case, as a curator as well. This June 1998 House & Garden spread features the Colorado home of a couple with an extraordinary collection of antiques and art. Making sense of such a disparate group of items is something that only a master could achieve. Interspersed among the Greek, Roman and Egyptian antiquities are numerous Japanese antiques of all types. I would be hard pressed to imagine more than one antique screen (byobu) in a house; somehow he manages to integrate three. In testament to Saladino’s triumph, it feels neither like the hodgepodge of an antique store nor has the sterility of a museum, but rather a peaceful and lovely home.

The coffee table boasts a grouping of bamboo letter boxes and what looks to be a bronze hibachi on the raised fireplace hearth.

The dining room/living room has a treasure trove of objects – the first of at least 3 byobu (screens) in the house on the back left hand wall, a kimono rack with an extraordinary brocade (or perhaps embroidered) robe up on the stair landing, a bowl-shaped bamboo ikebana basket between the columns and a rare lacquered trunk in the foreground.

This 17th century antique screen is coupled with an art deco Ruhlman chair, an Italian chest and a Roman bronze head.

Another view of the living room reveals that amazing lacquered trunk, a pair of bronze altar candlesticks and the third screen. The maki-e work on the trunk is covered in symmetrical circular designs called mon or kamon, circular crests used to identify a family, much like a European heraldic coat of arms. For instance, the kamon of the imperial family is the circular chrysanthemum and it’s use by others was prohibited. Gradually mon became used by commoners and then later on as logos for merchants and products. The use of mon as a decorative device can be seen in lacquerware, porcelain and textiles and is one of my favorites. Looking for your own mon? This site has a full dictionary of them.

The serene bedroom has a pair of highly ornamental 18th altar tables being used as small side tables. Definitely use a coaster!

Can you date these rooms without looking back at the beginning of the post? Most likely not, as in addition to their extraordinary beauty, they are also timeless and will never look dated. For me, this agelessness is one of Saladino’s strengths. Another is that his spaces are places in which modernists, traditionalists, classicists, and the like can all agree.

Interested in seeing more? I recommend his books; Villa, which chronicles the renovation and restoration of his elegant 1920s California villa and Style, in which he reveals his design secrets.

Image credits: all from House & Garden, June 1998, Photographed by William Waldron

Sep 23, 2010 By tokyojinja in Furniture, Interior Design, Lacquer, Textiles, Then and Now Tags: altar table, baskets, byobu, john saladino, lacquer

Search Results for: byobu

On the Blind’s Side…Sudare and Curtains

A Masterful Modern Mixmaster…John F. Saladino