In Japan, Homes Built With the Bathtub in Mind

October 30, 2009

By MIKI TANIKAWA

TOKYO — A whiff of autumn is in the air. Birds are singing, the crickets are chirping and there is a gentle seasonal breeze. Perfect for a picnic or family hiking? Perhaps, but many Japanese, including Hiroyuki Masuda, would prefer to do something else: take a bath.

His 4-square-meter, or 43-square-foot, bathtub sits next to a creek, covered only by a roof that extends from the weekend home he recently built in Shizuoka Prefecture, west of Tokyo. “I get to relax very much, here,” said Dr. Masuda, a pediatrician with an office in nearby Shizuoka City. “This weekend house was planned with the bath in mind.”

That bath, or ofuro, has a special place in Japanese history and culture — as well as in modern homes from Okinawa and Hokkaido to the towns of Karuizawa, Izu and Hakone, some of the favorite summer retreats for well-heeled residents of Tokyo and Osaka.

Some are carefully designed outdoor baths, or roten, that overlook a garden, have sweeping views of the ocean or mountains. Others are made of prized materials like hinoki, a cypress wood, and urushi, a lacquer often used on soup bowls.

“Japanese people long for healing and therapy, and they seek for it in the bathroom,” said Yukio Hashimoto, an architect based in Tokyo whose recent projects have included a number of high-end bathrooms. “For Westerners, bathrooms may be a place to clean themselves, but for the Japanese, it is much more than that.”

Kumiko Tanaka, editor-in-chief of Good Reform, a home-renovation and interiors magazine, said that a few things about the Japanese and their bathrooms were noteworthy. “The bathroom is the place to relax,” especially for Japanese men, she said.

“The bathroom is really a place to spend time,” Ms. Tanaka said, adding that many hardware stores have sections dedicated to accessories like bookshelves for the bathroom. People also use their bathrooms for activities like drinking sake; playing shogi, or Japanese chess; and contemplating views of the surrounding area.

In urban areas, physical and geographical limitations make extravagant bathroom features like an ornate garden or a sweeping view rare. But, Ms. Tanaka said, when city dwellers “build their second homes, their efforts to pursue their dream bath often becomes ferocious.”

Kimitsugu Sugihara, an architect in Yokohama who has designed many vacation homes with exotic bathrooms, including Dr. Masuda’s, said that many potential clients come to his office with pictures of baths at Japanese resorts that they want copied.

“They usually have some type of image from a well-designed hot-spring outdoor bath in mind,” he said. “These days, private outdoor bathrooms at ryokans are all the rage,” he said, referring to traditional Japanese inns.

Few Japanese think of creating a roten in a city, but Mr. Sugihara said he had taken on several such projects. “I would set up a little garden and enclose it with walls, and you are all set,” he said.

Some designers specialize in fine touches for baths. Mr. Hashimoto, the architectural designer, created a tub made of Japanese lacquer, or urushi, which is usually reserved for tableware like bowls and chopsticks. “It’s not too slippery, is soft to the skin and can withstand very high temperature,” he said. “Urushi is perfect for a bathtub.”

His black-and-red urushi bathtub was displayed last year at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, a furniture fair held annually in Milan. The price: ¥8 million, or $88,000.

A more common material is hinoki, the cypress that is a favorite among many Japanese. “Hinoki has the right texture, gives off nice scent and does not collect moss,” Ms. Tanaka of Good Reform magazine said.

Builders say that hinoki bathrooms cost ¥2 million to ¥4 million, depending on the size and design.