E31: Japanese Traditional Interior

Narcissa Niblack Thorne, creator of the Thorne Rooms, combined a deep knowledge of design history with a vivid imaginative sensibility. In the 1930s, she assembled a team of skilled artisans in Chicago to construct a series of intricately detailed interiors at the scale of one inch to one foot (1:12).

Conceived as a visual history of interior design, the rooms are at once scholarly and inventive. Meticulously researched and carefully composed, they balance historical accuracy with artistic interpretation. Each atmospheric interior feels like a stage set awaiting its occupants—two parts fantasy, one part history, and entirely absorbing.

Entry from Fannia Weingartner, Miniature Rooms: The Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago, 2nd ed. (The Art Institute of Chicago, 2004):

31: Japanese Interior, Traditional
In their traditional domestic architecture, the Japanese characteristically used wooden panels and paper shutters as the chief building materials for exteriors, and fixed or sliding panels of wood and rice paper as dividers in interiors. Such dividers offered the convenience of flexibility in the arrangement of the interior space. To represent Japanese architecture, Mrs. Thorne chose the zashiki, or main room, of the traditional Japanese home, as well as the adjoining room customarily used by the mistress of the house.
Essential elements of the main room are the two recessed areas at the back. The alcove to the left houses artistically arranged wall cabinets and shelves for art objects. That to the right is traditionally used to display a single work of art—a scroll or vase—chosen to be enjoyed for the day from a stock of such treasures kept in a fireproof storeroom. The floor of the main room is always covered with tatami, or straw mats, each of which measures about three by six feet and is bound with cotton borders.
The simple and harmonious structure of Japanese architecture is apparent despite the somewhat excessive number of objects Mrs. Thorne placed in the room. The translucent shoji (sliding doors), which give easy access to the garden at the right, and the floral motifs painted on the sliding doors that divide the zashiki from the room at the left, integrate the building with the natural setting outside. In the room at the left, three kimonos hang over a traditional stand, and the articles necessary for a woman’s toilette await use on the low table. The mirror and stand were made out of alloyed metal specifically for this model by a Japanese artist.
The absence of furnishings other than the lacquer writing desk and low tables in the main room is typical. Other accessories, including bedding, are brought into a room as the occasion demands. The writing desk in the zashiki, the screen in the adjoining room, and the stone ornaments in the garden are among several objects in this interior modeled after items depicted in Edward Sylvester Morse’s Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings (1886).
This room measures 10 1/2 x 23 1/4 x 15 1/2 inches