The Japanese Room, University of Melbourne - Deconstruction and Reconstruction

The Japanese Room at the University of Melbourne was designed by Japanese architect and University of Melbourne staff member Shigeru Yura, who was born in Tokyo in 1927 and graduated from the Tokyo Fine Arts School (now the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music) during the late 1940s. Then Architecture Faculty head, Brian Lewis, and Yura played a significant role in shaping the architectural identity of the University’s Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning (FABP) during the 1960s. The faculty building, which housed the original Japanese Room was approved in 1960, planned in 1962, and officially opened in May 1968 by Crown Prince Philip.

The 1960s saw increasing economic and cultural ties between Australia and Japan, including the establishment of the Australia-Japan Business Co-operation Committee in 1962, which sponsored the Japanese Room in 1965-66. The faculty had a significant number of Asian students and strong academic interest in Japanese architecture fostered by Brian Lewis following a study tour he took to Japan in 1961 accompanied by Yura. In 1963, Lewis invited FABP members, including Yura, to design culturally themed meeting rooms reflecting the diverse student body.

Yura’s Japanese Room was based on the shoin-zukuri domestic style of the 17th century, specifically one of the main reception rooms in the Katsura Imperial Villa, Kyoto, and is considered to be one of the most authentic examples of the style in Australia.

Prefabricated in Tokyo by Shinoda Meiboku Ten, the components arrived in Melbourne in November 1965. Yura had returned to Japan by then and was unable to oversee assembly but arranged for Australian workers to handle the high-quality timber using at least one white glove, a compromise on the traditional Japanese method. The room was initially used for FAPB board meetings, special events, and seminars but later increasingly became used as a supplementary teaching space, leading to deterioration in its fine finishes (lacquer and the like).

Measuring approximately 15 by 8 metres, the Japanese Room features timber and paper sliding doors, alcoves, and decorative wallpaper imported from Japan with gold-thread calligraphic motifs. The ceiling consists of Japanese cedar arranged in square modules, and the original moss-green carpet remains. The design incorporates key Shoin-style elements and works by other artists and designers, including a picture recess (tokonoma), staggered shelving (chigai-dana), hand painted decorative doors (fusuma or chōdaigamae), and a built-in desk (tsuke-shoin), as well as shoji screens and a carefully structured ceiling. Unlike traditional Shoin-Zukuri interiors, however, it lacks tatami mats although the space generally conforms to a four-tatami modular dimension.

The room originally contained table and chairs designed by Matsumura Katsuo (specifically designed for the space) and several donated art objects, including two gilt screens (byobu) from Japan’s Consul-General Hiroshi Nemoto at its 1966 opening, a painting by Taikan Yokoyama, The Brilliance of Heaven and Earth (Fujiyama) (currently held by the Ian Potter Museum), a Noh theatre mask, and two 19th-century bronze vases donated in 1966 (missing) among other items.

Additionally, a mural titled The Meeting, designed by Yura’s first wife, Fumiko Yura, was completed in 1964 in the stairwell adjacent to the room. It featured abstract, geometric shapes comprising square black and white terra cotta tiles. The mural was particularly sentimental to Yura as Fumiko completed it only a short time before her death.

Early conservation efforts began in the 1980s, including minor repairs to wallpaper from the original Tatsumura Textile Company in Osaka, approved by Yura, in keeping with traditional Japanese philosophies, embodied in wabi-sabi, that value the imperfections that arise from use and age – the acceptance of transience as it is expressed in our material environment.

In 2012, design and construction of a new FAPB building was underway with the original 1968 faculty building to be demolished. As part of the proposal, the University of Melbourne with John Wardle Architects and the Boston based firm NADAAA, proposed an initiative to save the Japanese Room and Garden and relocate and re-erect them on the rooftop of the new building.

JWA and NADAAA oversaw the design of a new exterior for the room which had theretofore only been an internal cell within the faculty building. They also oversaw the co-joining and sympathetic integration of the formerly separate Japanese Room and Japanese Garden with sliding screens opening onto the landscaped garden terrace. Stefan Mee, director of JWA, encapsulated the challenge of the project in stating: ‘The exterior is now designed around the interior – a reversal of the original condition.’

Although, neither the room nor the faculty building was heritage-listed, the University of Melbourne correctly determined it to be of high cultural significance and sought RBA’s advice about the proposed relocation and alterations of the space. RBA was commissioned to prepare a Conservation Management Plan (CMP) for the Japanese Room to guide its deconstruction and reconstruction to a new FABP building. RBA’s research, prepared in conjunction with Shigeru Yura, the first to document the cultural significance of the Japanese Room, +formed the foundation for developing the heritage conservation policies to ensure its continued use and longevity.