The Japanese Room was conceived in 1963 by staff member Professor Shigeru Yura as a contemporary interpretation of traditional Japanese interior design. Reflecting the Faculty’s long- standing connection with Asia, our treasured Japanese Room and Garden have been sensitively restored and elevated to the top floor of our new building.
Professor Shigeru Yura
The Japanese Room was conceived in 1963 by then staff member Professor Shigeru Yura as a contemporary interpretation of traditional Japanese interior design.
Yura came to Australia in 1961 to work on the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Canberra. He was also responsible for the Japanese War Cemetery at Cowra completed in 1964.
Relocating the Japanese Room
Carefully relocated from the original School of Architecture building, the room is based on the domestic shoin-zukuri style of the seventeenth-century and is considered one of the most authentic examples of the style in Australia. The room opens onto a spacious rooftop terrace, a re-imagining of Yura’s Japanese garden that graced the north entrance to the former School of Architecture. The stone lantern was presented to the Lord Mayor of Melbourne by the City of Yokohama in 1956.
Notable features include handpainted fusuma (sliding doors) by Japanese artist Ken Jiro, ramma (timber grilles), shoji (papered sliding window screens), a panelled Japanese cedar ceiling, chigaidana (split-level shelving) and modular timber furniture designed by Matsumura Katsuo. The woven silk wallpaper contains gold thread sourced from the Tatsamura Textile Company in Osaka. In keeping with Japanese tradition, the room was constructed without the use of nails.
The Japanese room is an important symbol of the faculty’s commitment to educating build environment professionals in the Asia-Pacific and Indian sub-continental region.