Staying in James Turrell’s House of Light

21 Aug 2006 Category: Architecture, Features, Japan

Staying in James Turrell’s House of Light

Way out in the depths of Niigata prefecture, there’s a house unlike any other in Japan. James Turrell’s “House of Light” is a modern-built, traditional-style Japanese house where people can stay to experience light in a variety of specific conditions that the artist has arranged for, all centred around a sky-viewing room…

Written by Ashley Rawlings

James Turrell is an artist from California (born 1943) whose installation work controls viewers’ perception of light and space. He has works all over the world, and there are many in Japan too. His work Minamidera on Naoshima for example is a wooden ‘temple’, pitch black inside, in which you have to sit for ten minutes before your eyes gradually adjust to the faint, ghostly white form that appears in the space in front of you.


Minamidera on Naoshima

A frosted glass opening next to the entrance

The Chichu Art Museum which opened on Naoshima in 2004 was also partly built in order to house some of his work. Open Sky is a tall concrete chamber with seats built into the walls. In the ceiling there is a large square hole through which you can see the sky. Even on a grey day, the sky takes on an incredible beauty. And even if it rains, the water comes in and drains away through discreetly designed grilles in the floor. The seats are set back far enough so that you probably won’t get wet.

The House of Light operates on a similar principle: there is a square hole in the ceiling covered only by a mechanical sliding roof, which you are invited to open at sunset and sunrise.

I ventured out there a couple of days ago with the staff at Tokyo Art Beat and Shirokuma magazine as a way of escaping the sweltering heat of Tokyo. It was just right because it was pouring down with rain in Niigata prefecture, making the landscape more atmospheric, with steam rising off the mountains all around.

steamy mountains in Niigata

The house is located on the outskirts of the Tokamachi, half-way up one of these mountains. Its entrance had to be built over 2.7 metres above the ground so that it can survive the massive snowfall that affects the region in winter. Just walking up the steps feels like walking up to the entrance of a temple.

main room inside the house

Inside is that amazing modern-traditional Japanese aesthetic that I’ve seen in countless interior design magazines but never actually found myself in for real! The whole house has that faint, relaxing smell of wood and tatami mats, and yet the lighting is very different from an ordinary traditional Japanese house.


one of Turrell’s tokonoma light installations in the main room

a very traditional Japanese looking veranda

All around the upper part of the walls run channels of light: a soft yellow glow that can be adjusted with dimmer-switches, but the switches all have marks telling you the level Turrell recommends, so we left them as they were. Where there are normally scrolls hanging in the tokonoma alcoves, there are James Turrell’s light installations.

The layout of the upper floor is structured mainly around the twelve-mat sky-viewing room and the kitchen, which is fully equipped with glasses, cutlery and crockery to use as you wish. You can cook for yourself or order in locally-prepared food in large, lacquer bento boxes.


beautiful light kitchen ready to use

another specially lit corridor

Downstairs there’s another tatami room and then a very sleek hot spring… but only one, so boys and girls have to figure something out among themselves.

memorable hot spa in the house

Turrell’s choice of lighting down there is a little different: just a few fiber-optic cables running around the edge of the water and around the door frame. While I felt it was atmospheric in its own way, it wasn’t quite in keeping with the rest of the house: it somehow made me think of how coctail bars might have looked in Florida in the 1980s. The water was also a little on the tepid side, which was a shame, but it was still one of the most memorable hot springs I’ve ever been to.


shower and….

… the typical wooden seat for longer washing sessions

Because of the rain, we weren’t able to open up the roof at sunset, but it didn’t matter so much because the rain was so atmospheric anyway. The lights around the house darkened to a deeper orange glow and the relaxed mood for the evening was very much set.

orange atmosphere

Most of us pulled out the futons and went to sleep at around 1am, but we were then woken up by the clamour of excited people opening the roof at 3:15am because the rain had stopped — just in time for the beginning of sunrise!


napping away in orange light

excited friends opening the roof for sun-rise

In comparison to sunsets, it’s not that often that most people see the sky at sunrise, especially not from their very beginning in the middle of the night, studied intently through an aperture designed for that very purpose. I watched the sky for the next hour and a half, gradually turning from jet black, to black, to the darkest possible shade of blue, slowly, slowly brightening up into dawn… After the long initial period in which the sky remained black, the moment when I first noticed the almost imperceptible change into deep blue was incredibly moving.

I took photos every time I perceived a change in colour, but looking at them later, the first five out of eight seem identical; on its automatic setting, the camera is barely capable of making the distinctions that the human eye can. Once the sun comes up over the horizon the colour of the sky changes much quicker and the camera can pick it up more easily.


4:13am

4:19am

4:20am

4:30am

By the time I got up, I simply couldn’t believe an hour and a half had gone by. And then we were all rewarded by the most phenomenal view of the valley at sunrise.

The most impressive start to your day: African sunrise in Niigata

Looking east into the sun, it looked like a landscape straight out of Africa: a blazing sunrise with steam rolling across the mountains.


incredible breakfast feast

After a few more hours sleep, it was time to have breakfast (another feast!) and get ready to leave… from start to finish it was an unforgettable experience.

The house is open to regular visitors during the day, so we had to check out by 10am. It was sad to go… while so many people must visit the house all year round, our stay there felt very personal. We left talking about how we would come again next year.

In the meantime, if you happen to be in that area, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Trienniale is taking place, running until the 10th September.

To make a reservation for the House of Light, please fill out the forms here.

58 Comments

  1. This is beautiful! Just checked their site and all weekends are booked until February or something…. better plan my holiday quick!

    Posted by: Luca206 on August 21st, 2006 at 10:09 pm

  2. Magnificent!

    Posted by: Edouard on August 22nd, 2006 at 8:05 am

  3. its really luck to take place there, like a dream.
    and I really agree with James Turrell, the yellow light make people relax.

    Posted by: x-noise on August 22nd, 2006 at 11:21 am

  4. this place looks absolutely stunning in its simplicity

    Posted by: 2triky on August 22nd, 2006 at 1:52 pm

  5. Was the sink still cracked? I accidentally broke it by switching from hot water to cold water too fast.

    Posted by: anon on August 22nd, 2006 at 3:32 pm

  6. Very nice!

    Posted by: dk on August 22nd, 2006 at 11:57 pm

  7. so cool! Awwwwwwwwwwwww

    Posted by: ヤーッコ on August 23rd, 2006 at 5:04 am

  8. I dunno, we’ve got orange lights in our office and I’m almost never relaxed here!

    Posted by: Anonymous on August 23rd, 2006 at 8:53 am

  9. coz your work too busy. :D

    Posted by: x-noise on August 23rd, 2006 at 5:49 pm

  10. oh boy! astounishing!! How pays for this house ? Like, who owns it and for what purpose?
    Did Turrell worked only on the light side of the building process or did he designed it from scracth! I’m very curious…thanks ;)

    Posted by: pricca on August 25th, 2006 at 9:46 am

  11. [...] PingMag just published an article on Staying in James Turrell’s House of Light - a house in Japan’s Niigata prefecture that showcases the artist’s specialty in handling natural light. If you live near San Francisco, you can visit one of his fabulous pieces at the new DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park. I must make it to Japan someday soon. [...]

    Posted by: the adventures of teapot the cat » James Turrell’s House of Light on August 26th, 2006 at 4:14 am

  12. [...] Staying a night in James Turrell’s house of light. Oh wonderful. Look at those pictures! Turrell’s a really interesting guy. He’s still classified as an artist, but look at his designs for the light installations (say, the plan views in The Other Horizon): this is the inner spirit of architecture, the play of light and space. [...]

    Posted by: fastacting » Blog Archive fastacting A new map of the world. on August 28th, 2006 at 6:39 am

  13. That looks amazing. I stayed in a ryokan earlier this year, it was fantastic.

    Posted by: Adrian on September 6th, 2006 at 9:01 pm

  14. [...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. « older entry  |  newer entry» [...]

    Posted by: House Of Light » somewhere the raven shudders » Archive » House Of Light on September 12th, 2006 at 7:03 pm

  15. idea can do.

    Posted by: dood_joo_gru@hotmail.com on September 17th, 2006 at 2:02 am

  16. If you can’t afford to stay at Turrell’s House of Light, you can visit his amazing installation at the Zug train station outside Zurich for free, or watch it on video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pxn9pY38gQ

    Posted by: travelina on March 11th, 2007 at 11:20 pm

  17. A transcendance of disciplines - the only true art..?

    Tom

    Posted by: Tomi on April 5th, 2007 at 12:37 am

  18. IS A NICE HOUSE

    Posted by: Rodrigo on July 20th, 2007 at 12:59 am

  19. [...] pingmag - house of light Filed under: Thesis, Art, Japan   |   [...]

    Posted by: james turrel - house of light at ::: hey yo nick! ::: on October 25th, 2007 at 5:20 pm

  20. neat!)

    Posted by: amy on October 26th, 2007 at 10:28 am

  21. absolutely stunning.
    his exhibitions and installations are always worth the trip.
    last saw him at the Louise T Blouin Foundation in London, where i sat in front of one piece for about an hour.
    sublime.

    Posted by: jethro clunies-ross on April 16th, 2008 at 2:17 am

  22. [...] July 2008 by mgm1 PingMag, Tokyo based desgin/art review, has put out a series on an amazing work by James Turrell: a house [...]

    Posted by: House of Light [clipping] « LAND RELIEF on July 17th, 2008 at 1:36 am

  23. it s faboulous, i ll go to have a look!

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  29. [...] of the festival, having made the trek with Tokyo Art Beat way back in 2006 for the 3rd Triennale to stay at James Turrell’s “House of Light”. In September 2011, AQ took a field trip to catch the 4th [...]

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