The research of this paper focuses on “Soan” style tea houses in 16-19th century and discusses the criteria of two kinds of classification; the design styles ”Rikyu” / ”Samurai” / ”Noble” and the design preference of tea master “Konomi”. In order to achieve it, the paper studies the typological structures of morphological composition through the multivariate analyses of physical quantitative data of elements and compares between historical knowledge and the results of analyses.
The steps of research method are as follows:
1. Collect the physical quantitative data of 13 elements from the plans and elevations of the tea houses, then see the results of it and discuss the properties of “Soan” style tea house.
2. Use the data collected in the first step and study the typological structure of morphological composition by the principal component analysis and Cluster analysis in parallel. In addition, check the principal component coefficients of 13 elements and discuss the tendencies of typological structures.
3. Study the correspondence between the typological structures and each classification: the design styles and the design preference of tea master.
The results were as follows;
1. There are 4 types of typological structures (Fig. 4) ; (1) the small size and the free lighting format, (2) a little bit bigger size than (1) and lighting from windows, (3) the small size and little lighting open, closed space, (4) low ceiling height but big number of areas of plan, Fusuma and Shoji. And there are 5 tea houses which aren't classified in 4 types.
2. The results of 3rd step show correspondences between the typological structures and the design styles (Fig. 5). “Rikyu” style tea houses have small lighting opens and closed space regardless of the size. “Samurai” style ones have the similar composition to “Rikyu” style, but the plan area and the size of windows and Fusuma are bigger than it. “Noble” style tea houses have different space compositions, but they have more open and freely designed spaces, higher ceiling and wider Shoji and Fusuma.
3. The results of 3rd step don't show any clear correspondence between the typological structure and the design preference of tea master “Konomi” (Fig. 6). However they show the tendency that “Uraku Konomi” tea houses have lower ceiling height and smaller area of Fusuma than “Rikyu Konomi”.
For further research of these classifications, it's necessary to analyze with the data of position (direction, height, relation between host and customer, etc) of elements or the qualitative data of small elements (shelf, ornament etc). And probably the logistic analysis is also useful to study more precise structures of the design styles.
