In Praise of Shadows Junichiro Tanizaki Translated from the Japanese by ‘Thomas J. Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker ® JONATHAN CAPE LONDON(Gene Book, Ine Jonathan Cape 20 Vana re Ros Ltn sy 28 ary Edun, Sul wens PLES9 AT 4 Aa 7 FOREWORD 14 (One ofthe basic human requitements isthe need £0 dwvel, and one ofthe central human acts isthe act of inhabiting, of connecting ourselves, however tempor aril, with a place on the planet which belongs 0 us, and to which we belong. This isnot, especially inthe tumultuous present, an easy act (as is atested by the uninhabited and uninhabitable no-places in cites everywhere), and it requtes help: we need allies in inhabitaion Fortunately, weave at hand many alls ifonly we ‘all on them; other upright objets, from towers to chimneys to columns, stand infor usin sympathetic imitation of our own upright stance, Flowers and ratdens serve as testimonials to our own care, and breees loosely captured can connect us withthe very ‘edge ofthe infin, But inthe West our most powerfl ally slight. “The sun never knew how wonderful it was? the architect Louis Kahn sid, "unlit fll onthe wallofa building” And for us the acofinhabtationis mostly performed in cahoots with the sun, our staunches all, bathing out wold or fickering through it helping give i igh.comes with the til of slap for us then to hear praise of shadows and darkness; soit is when there ‘comes tous the excitement of realizing that musicians ‘everywhere make their sounds to capture silence or tha architects develop complex shapes justo envelop ‘empty space. Thos darkness illuminates for us a clere ‘ery different from our own; but athe same time ie helps us t0 look deep into ourelves £0 our own inhabitation of the world, a it describes with spine tingling insights the traditional Japanese inhabitation ofthis. Ke could change ou lives. Charles Moore School of Architecture, UCLA In Praise of Shadows‘What incredible pains the fancier of traditional arch secture mus take when he sets out to build a house in pure Japanese style, striving somehow to make elects wie, 2s pipes, and wate lines harmonize withthe sustrty of Japanese rooms ~even someone who has never built house forhimelfmustsense this when he Visits 2 ceahouse, a restaurant, oF an ian. For the isanother mater, hecanignorethe Besings of scenic civilization and retreat to some solitary econ forsaken corner ofthe countyside; uta man who has {family an lives inthe city cannot turn his back on the necessities of modern ife heating electric lights, sanitary aciles ~ merely forthe sake of doing things the Japanese way. The prist may rack is bain overthe placement of single telephone, hiding i behind the staircase orina corner ofthe hallway, wherever he thinks it will east offend the eye. He may bury the wires rather dhan hang them inthe garden, hide the Ssitches in a closet or cupboaed un the cords behind folding sereen. Yee For all his ingenuity, his efforts “oftenimpress us as nervous, sy, excssively contrived For so accustomed are we to electric lights that the sight of a naked bulb beneath an ordinary milk glass shade seems simpler and more natural than any sratuitous attempt hideit Seen a dusk asone gazes ‘ut upon the countryside from the window of acai, the lonely light of a bulb under an old-fashioned shade, shining dimly from behind the white paper shojiof thach-roofed farmhouse, ca sem positively clegant ‘Bat the snarl and the bulk of anclectricfan eemaina bic out of plac in Japanese room. The odinary house Folder, if he dss esr fan, can simply do without them. Ba ifthe family busines involves che entertain iment of customers in summertime, the gentleman of the house cannot afford to indulge his own eases at the expense af others. A frend of mine, the proprietor of a Chinese restaurant called the Kairakuen, is 2 thoroughgoing purist in matters arhivcrural. He de lores electric fans and long refused to ave them in his restaurant, but the complains om customers with which he was faced every summer ultimately forced him to give in 1 myself have had similar experiences. A few years ago I spent a great deal more money than I could afford to build a house fussed over every ast Siting snd fixture, and in every case encountered difcly. “There was the shoj: for aesthetic reasons I did not want 10 use glass, and yet paper alone would have posed problems of illumination and secu. Much against my will, I decided to cover dhe inside with paper and the outside with glass. This required a